The Unwanted
by Alphabet Pie
Summary: Vexen's life is turned around when his bitchy little sister Larxene brings home a dying werewolf by the name of Marluxia one night. 411, implied Larxel and a few others. Complete. Contains some lemon in later chapters, can easily be skipped.
1. Rescue

Larxene found him one night as she drove her drunken friends home after another wild party. He'd been badly injured, beaten to a pulp then left for dead at the side of the road. Uncharacteristically, she must have taken pity on him, as she carried his bloody body inside and laid it out on the kitchen table.

There was blood everywhere. It trailed in from the front door, dripped off the table, plastered his tangled, matted hair to his pale face.

I voted that we quickly put him out of his misery and bury him in the back garden. Larxene protested.

"We can't kill him," She said. "I'd feel like a murderer,"

She brushed away a lock of hair from his face, revealing the tattoo shaped like a crescent moon on his cheek. He shuddered at her touch, then lay still.

"Can't we keep him?" She pleaded. I shook my head.

"I'm not having a werewolf in my house,"

She gave me a desperate look and I set my jaw.

"No. He's practically dead anyway. It'd be more humane this way. A clean shot to the head is all it will take,"

Everybody kept a gun these days. Attacks were so frequent that it had become a standard safety procedure.

Larxene looked heartbroken.

"But he's so helpless,"

"He's a monster, Larxene,"

I pulled out my rifle. It was an old model from my grandfather's time, upgraded with the latest firing technology. I liked it. It fitted nicely in my hands.

I lowered the barrel until it was resting on the werewolf's forehead. Larxene looked away in disgust. I pulled back the safety catch.

The sound must have jolted the werewolf awake, because his eyes flew open and he scrabbled madly at the table to get away from the stare of the gun. His back hit the wall with such ferocity that something cracked and he cried out in pain and fear.

"Oh God!" He gasped. "Oh God, no, _please_,"

"Vexen, you can't," Larxene said, eyes hard. "Not like this. You can't kill him now,"

I met the werewolf's mad, wild eyes. Larxene was right.

I lowered the gun.

"But he's not staying here,"

"_Vexen!_"

The werewolf was moving, slowly lifting himself up from the table.

"I'll leave," He offered, following his own trail of blood to the front door.

Larxene glared daggers at me.

"You could at least pretend to be nice,"

"He's a werewolf," I said, as if she hadn't already noticed.

The monster had reached the hallway, leaning on walls for support. But now he spun around, anger flaring up in his eyes.

"Yes!" He cried. "I am! Do you think I _chose_ to be?"

He let out a shaky breath, clinging desperately to the staircase banisters to keep himself upright. "It's easy enough for you," He continued, sentences jagged as he fought to keep his breathing under control. "You're not a _freak_,"

He stood quivering in mortified anger for a few moments, then collapsed.

"Blood," I muttered, inspecting the damage. "Everywhere. Larxene, what were you thinking?"

"Oh, come on, Vexen," She said. "Don't be so heartless. Look at him."

Here, my little sister, breaker of hearts, torturer of insects, proverbial kicker of puppies and stealer of candy from babies, was accusing _me_ of being heartless.

I broke.

"Just for tonight," I said, knowing that it would end up being so much longer. Give Larxene an inch, she'd take enough to get to Japan.

I helped her take the werewolf up to the bathroom where I stripped him down and bathed him while she cleaned up the mess downstairs. The stench of blood was tangible in the air, and the bathwater soon became opaque as I washed away the caked blood from his skin.

Halfway through, he awoke, startled.

"It's okay," I assured him. "I won't hurt you. You can stay here tonight,"

He nodded and closed his eyes, leaning back against the side of the bath as I gently sponged his arm.

"You're Vexen, aren't you," He murmured.

"Yes," I replied. "What's your name?"

"Marluxia."

It was odd that this broken creature should bear a name so regal and honourable. Yet, even more strangely, it suited him.

We were both silent for a few minutes.

"Thank you," Marluxia said.

"What for?"

"For not killing me. Letting me stay in your house. Getting me clean. It's consideration not many people would show to my kind,"

"It was nothing," I said quickly. Now he was more-or-less blood free, I could see that Marluxia was in better condition than I had first thought, and awake and talking to me, I didn't want to remember that I had been planning to kill him. The thought made me feel nauseous. Werewolves were, after all, so almost human.

Larxene popped in.

"Hey," She said. "I've set up the sleeping bag on the couch downstairs, Vexen,"

I nodded as she pulled out ample bandages from the cupboard. Marluxia politely denied them.

"I'm fine," He said. "I'll heal quicker without them,"

"Oh, okay," Larxene replied. "If you insist. We'd better get you towelled down, then, find you some clean clothes and then get you to the bedroom,"

"Bedroom?" I echoed in confusion. "I thought he'd be sleeping on the couch,"

Larxene looked comically aghast.

"No way! You can't force him to sleep on the sofa! Poor thing!"

It suddenly occurred to me that Larxene might not have taken in Marluxia out of the kindness of her own heart; rather that she planned to use the werewolf as a tool to make my life as miserable as possible. I hypothesised that this might be petty revenge for some unknown misdeed on my part. Larxene was like that.

I resigned myself to the sitting room as Larxene introduced Marluxia to my room and my bed. The old sofa was uncomfortable, the sleeping bag prickly. I ended up migrating to the armchair and spending most of the night watching television.

Halfway through, Marluxia came in. His condition had vastly improved; what had first looked like deep gouges turned out to be nothing more than scratches. Clean and dry, his matted hair fell about his face like a majestic mane, and out from underneath it poked two canine ears, barely visible. He had a tail, too, the same colour, voluminous and fluffy. But aside from them, he could have been human.

He scratched one ear, amiably.

"I couldn't sleep," He said. "You may as well have your bed back,"

"I'm awake now," I replied. "No point trying to get back to sleep," Usually, after about two or three in the morning, I didn't bother trying to sleep. I simply wired myself on coffee until dawn.

Marluxia looked a little surprised, but nodded, took the old sleeping bag-

"May I use this?"

"Sure,"

- and crumpled on the floor in front of me. For a long time we watched the television in silence. Well, I watched. After a while I became aware that Marluxia was gazing absently at me, head tilted back against the armchair.

"What?"

"Nothing. I was just thinking."

I turned back to the flickering screen.

Larxene found us both deeply asleep somewhere around midday. She none-too-gently shoved my shoulder, jerking me awake.

"Hey, sleepyhead, wake up,"

"Huh?"

"You should have left for work, oh, about five hours ago,"

My eyes flew open.

"What?! Why didn't you wake me up?" I demanded, standing up abruptly. The room span and I had to hold my head to keep from falling over.

Larxene grabbed the TV remote and switched it off.

"Monday, you moron," She droned. Larxene always insulted me. After a while, I began to ignore her. "You should have set your alarm,"

"I did!" I exclaimed, before catching myself. Of course I did. My alarm on my bedside table, upstairs.

"They called to ask where you were. I said you were sick,"

I grimaced.

"Great. What else did you say?"

"Flu. You'll be off all week,"

Larxene grinned at me. She obviously thought this was the best thing, ever.

"You realise they'll ask me for a doctor's certificate?"

"Man flu?" She said, hopefully. "Anyway, I'm out. Gotta go meet Axel,"

"I thought you dumped him,"

She waved her hand at me as she headed for the door.

"Vexen, you obviously don't understand _anything_. Dump a guy, he'll shower you with presents and promises of great sex. Axel's the perfect sucker. Do you really think I'd pass up on such an opportunity?"

I honestly couldn't understand why anybody found Larxene so attractive. She was shallow and cruel and I hated her. I was glad when she left the house.

"Why do you let her stay here?" Marluxia asked from behind me. He was perched on the end of our sofa.

"She's my sister. After she got kicked out of her flat a few years ago, she made me promise my mum that I'd look after her. She comes and goes,"

"This is your house, then,"

I nodded.

"I'm just paying off the last of the mortgage now,"

I turned around to face Marluxia. He was standing straight and proud, only just shorter than I was. His body was well defined, his jaw firm, and he had the most piercing flinty blue eyes I had ever encountered.

"Where do you live?" I asked, hoping that perhaps I might be able to take him home and be rid of yet another freeloader. My income was stretched far enough out by Larxene and her exuberant spending as it was. I didn't need a werewolf to look after, too.

Marluxia scoffed.

"Nowhere. Monsters aren't allowed to own homes, remember?"

I honestly hadn't ever done much research into the likes of werewolves, vampires and gargoyles. All I knew was that when they were found, they were marked - a crescent moon for a werewolf, the outline of a bat for a vampire, and three claw marks for a gargoyle. The tattoos were on the left cheek, where everybody could see them. They were the scum of society, often banding together to form groups and attack humans. On the other end of the spectrum were mages and angels. They too, had marks; but they were a symbol of honour and authenticity.

I led Marluxia to the kitchen with the promise of food, eager to avoid that particular topic of conversation if I could. There was never much in the fridge; Larxene was lazy and I never had any time to cook, so both of us more-or-less lived off takeaways.

I found some bread and cheese, and made sandwiches. Marluxia seemed grateful for the food; when he ate, it was although he'd been starved.

"Vampires have it easy," He said once he was done. "All they need to do is find some poor, gullible victim and that's their fix for a month." He paused for a moment to scoop the crumbs into his mouth. "And gargoyles don't even need to eat. But werewolves are hungry all the time. With no money to buy food, we're lowered to searching through dustbins for scraps. This-" He pointed to his tattoo, "-is the ultimate degradation,"

I didn't really know what to say. I offered him another sandwich.

It was the majority of the loaf of bread, and our entire worldly stock of cheese, later, that the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Vexen! It's Xigbar. How are ya?"

Xigbar was one of the guys from work; evidently he'd heard that I was supposedly ill and had rung to check that I was okay. I coughed pointedly down the line.

"I'm feeling better," I said.

"Your lil' sis said you'd be off all week. Dude!"

"She was exaggerating," I quickly replied, trying to fake bunged-up-ness. "It's just a bad cold or something. I'll be back in tomorrow,"

"Oh. Wicked. I was worried you'd caught something bad."

"No, I'm fine,"

"Coolio! Gotta go. Catch you later!"

"Yeah. Bye,"

Marluxia was polishing off his eighth or ninth sandwich.

"That," He said, "Was the best thing I've eaten in months,"

"It was only cheese and bread," I replied, picking up his plate and dumping it by the dishwasher.

"My statement still stands,"

"So, what else can't werewolves do? I didn't know there were laws and things," I asked, curious. I'd always thought that monsters were simply marked and then left to their own devices. The tattoos were simply a warning to normal people that they might be dangerous.

"Well, nobody in their right mind would employ one of us, for a start, even if it was legal. No money means no food, no homes, no clothes, nothing, except what we can salvage from bins and skips. And the National Health Service won't ever treat us, so even a menial injury or illness could kill us. We're illegible for education, banned from public transport." He counted them off on his fingers. "And the worst thing? We're unprotected by law. Humans are allowed to kill us and there isn't a single thing we can do about it. Retaliate, and the police come and shoot you dead instead. We're completely at the mercy of sick freaks who think it's sporting to hunt down a powerless person and subject them to a slow and torturous death,"

The tone of voice made it sound like Marluxia was speaking from personal experience.

"Even I find that sick," I said, well aware that I sounded like a hypocrite.

Marluxia gave me a questioning look with those piercing eyes. I never fared well under that kind of pressure.

"Look," I finally said. "I thought you were dying anyway. It would have been more humane to kill you quickly,"

Marluxia glanced away.

"I understand," He said, making it clear that he never would.

I looked at him for a long time as he sat calmly at the kitchen table, watching the world go by through the window. He looked so deceptively human; nothing of the killer one would expect from the tattoo emblazoned on his cheek.

I felt awkward, here in my little bubble of a secure house and a job and a bitchy, freeloading little sister, when next to me was a man living each day not even knowing if he'd still be alive come the morning.

"It must be hard," I finally said, as though that would somehow excuse my actions last night.

"Crushing," Marluxia replied dully.

The phone rang again and I sighed, picking it up. I hoped it wasn't another sympathiser from work.

"Hey Vexie! It's Larxene,"

"Hurrah," I muttered sarcastically. "What do you want this time?"

"Thought I'd just tell you I'll be staying with Axel tonight. The werewolf still around?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Just making sure you weren't planning on getting rid of him,"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well _obviously_ I'm keeping him,"

"He's not a pet, Larxene,"

I glanced at Marluxia and he steadily met my gaze. He knew we were talking about him.

"Yeah, well, he's cute," Larxene said, giggling like she'd just let on some big secret. "He can sleep in my room tonight if he likes,"

"I'm sure he'd be thrilled," I intoned sarcastically. Larxene didn't seem to pick up on this.

"Yuh-huh! Anyway, gotta go. Axel's calling. See you later!"

She hung up before I could reply.

Marluxia looked at me expectantly.

"Larxene says you can sleep in her bed tonight,"

"I don't think that's such a good idea," Marluxia said. He gestured briefly outside. "Tonight's a full moon,"

"Please," I said, sensing revenge on the horizon. "Feel free,"

Okay. _Maybe_ I regretted letting Marluxia loose on Larxene's bedroom just a little bit. But it was worth it for her reaction.

"Vexen!!" She shrieked. She'd come home early morning, just as I was about to leave. "What the _fuck_ have you done to my room?!"

"I haven't done anything," I calmly replied. "You did say Marluxia could sleep there,"

"This isn't sleep! This is manic, psychopathic wrecking!!"

She gestured wildly to the overturned shelves, the shredded clothes and bedcovers, the deep gouges in the wallpaper.

"If I had honestly realised, I would have found somewhere more suitable," Marluxia said, his voice the epitome of sincerity, so brilliantly convincingly apologetic. "But having been unconscious after the attack, I lost track of the days. I'm _so_ sorry,"

Larxene melted. Ah, she always was a sucker for pretty boys.

"Oh, it's okay," She said. "I'm sure I'll manage. It's not your fault,"

I felt a lot better as I caught the train to work. Granted, I was still exhausted from lack of sleep - last night there had been such screams and howls that it was impossible to even drift off - but I was newly optimistic about Marluxia. If Larxene brought him in to make me suffer, then I would have no qualms in turning him right back onto her. And it would be the sweetest, most beautiful revenge.

When I came home, Larxene was out again and Marluxia was in the back garden, fixing her old pine bed. Oddly enough, he was sawing halfway through the screws before he drilled them back into the wood.

I gave him a questioning look.

"They'll last about a week or two," He said, giving one slat a test by pushing on it. "And then, hopefully, collapse spectacularly when she tries to have sex with somebody,"

I decided then and there that Marluxia was amazing.

"She didn't do anything, did she?" I asked, just in case.

"Does your sister flirt with everything on two legs, or is there just something about me that screams "sleep with me!" at her?"

I laughed, sitting down next to him amongst the odd nails and screws that littered the lawn.

"She thinks every man is screaming for her to have sex with him. I shouldn't worry about it too much."

"I didn't. I just ignored her,"

"So what's with the collapsing bed?"

"She was convinced I was flirting right back at her. Just because I offered to help fix her room for her,"

"My advice is steer well clear," I said, sagely. "Larxene doesn't understand the concept of male friends being just friends,"

"What about you?" Marluxia asked, giving the bed one last, finishing pat. It creaked ominously.

"Me? I don't do relationships,"

"You're not much like her, are you," Marluxia commented as he lifted the bed up - Good Lord, he must have been strong to be able to do that - onto his back and began to carry it indoors.

"I'm glad you can tell," I replied. "I hate her."

"I did sense some sort of sibling rivalry going on when I arrived," Marluxia said. He shifted the weight of the bed slightly on his back as he prepared to heave it up the stairs. "I would have liked to have planned to stay out of it, but it seems like I shall be a tool for revenge on both your parts from now on,"

I sighed, smiling wryly. So Marluxia had noticed too. Well, Larxene and I were always trying to get back on each other for even the tiniest little things. It stood to reason that everybody we knew was duly forced into taking one side or the other.

"I'm afraid that happens to most people we know,"

Marluxia had pushed the door to Larxene's room open, and carefully placed the bed back in its original place.

"I don't mind. It's highly amusing."

He stretched, his back clicking with the movement.

"I don't suppose you have any food?"

I'd already eaten out on the way home from work, and chucked what I couldn't finish in the bin.

"I think there might be some tins in the cupboard. Did Larxene feed you?"

Marluxia shook his head as he followed me downstairs to the kitchen.

"I did find her chocolate stash, though, but I left it alone. Just in case,"

"Wise," I replied. "You know what women are like with chocolate,"

I climbed onto the worktop and opened one of the cupboards. There was a large supply of old tins of fruit, vegetables and sauces that we'd just never got around to eating. Half of them were out of date by several years.

I pulled out the ones that would no longer be edible to throw them in the bin. There wasn't any point in keeping them.

"There's nothing the right side of its best before date," I told Marluxia, "Except a tin of sweetcorn and some bolognaise sauce,"

"It's okay. I'm not fussy. Pass it all down," Marluxia replied, opening a drawer at random to find a tin opener.

I watched in fascination as he easily consumed six cans of mixed vegetables, two tins of sardines and a bottle of pizza topping.

Finally he put down the last tin, licked clean.

"And still hungry," He muttered.

I glanced at the cupboard.

"This one's got a best-before date of 2004," I said, holding up a four-pack of baked beans. He ate them all. Cold.

Just as I was squashing the cans to put them in the recycling box, Larxene flung herself in through the door.

"That basta-" She stopped in her tracks as she saw Marluxia leaning against the counter in all his tall, assertive, masculine glory.

Yes, definitely a sucker for pretty boys.

She straightened herself out, puffed out her chest a little and ran a hand through her hair.

"Hey, Mar," He said, smiling. "Did you finish fixing my bed for me?"

Marluxia nodded.

"It's back upstairs," He said. Larxene waltzed over, ignoring my glares.

"Thanks _so_ much," She said. "How can I ever repay you?"

I certainly knew what _she_ meant.

Marluxia glanced back at the cupboard.

"More food would be good,"

Larxene sagged a little; evidently not the response she wanted.

"Hasn't Vexen even fed you?" She asked with an accusing glare in my general direction. Marluxia waved his hand at her.

"He has. Plenty. I shouldn't have asked. Never mind,"

"There's still some more out of date stuff in the cupboard if you like," I said, pulling out a few more tins. Larxene looked aghast.

"Vexen! You've been feeding him gone off food?!"

"It's fine," Marluxia said, opening a tin of sweetcorn and eagerly digging in. "It's better than what I used to have to salvage from dustbins,"

Larxene wrinkled her nose.

"That's disgusting,"

"Welcome to life."

She pouted at the comment and swept out in a huff. I laughed at her.

"Oh, she's so pathetic," I said. Marluxia looked up from his second tin of sweetcorn.

"She says the same of you,"

I shrugged.

"No doubt. I bet she says some terrible things about me sometimes,"

"Hm." Marluxia agreed, polishing off the last of the sweetcorn. "You have quite a feud going between you,"

"That's because," I said, preparing for a full explanation for the werewolf's benefit, "Larxene is a slutty, freeloading bitch of a little sister that I have been unduly shackled with just because she can't take the strain of getting herself a job and living an everyday life that, oh, just about everybody else in the known universe manages to do,"

"Except the marked," Marluxia added pointedly.

"Yeah, but at least they have a good reason for it," I replied, chucking the last can in the recycling box and shoving it back under the counter. Marluxia nodded, but didn't look wholly convinced. I shied from his piercing gaze, and decided to change the subject.

"I guess you'll be staying here in the long term," I said with an air of resignation. "I'll need to get you some decent clothes. And find somewhere for you to sleep."

"Anywhere is fine," Marluxia said quickly. "I'll just sleep where it's most convenient for you,"

"Larxene's room?" I asked hopefully.

"I hasten to remind you that manic, psychopathic wrecking isn't part of my everyday behaviour," Marluxia said as we made our way upstairs.

"Here's to hoping for extraordinary circumstances, then?"

Marluxia shook my hand before making his way towards Larxene's room.

"You are a terrible, terrible man, Vexen," He laughed. "I think I might be starting to like you,"

Lying alone in my bed that night, I briefly felt sorry for shackling Marluxia with Larxene, but then again his good looks and charming personality had her curled around his little finger. He could ask her to build him his very own room and she'd probably do it in the hopes of future satisfaction, the shallow pig.

I awoke in the morning to find Larxene rifling through my underwear drawer.

"What are you doing?" I demanded, rolling out of bed none-too-gracefully and collapsing in a heap on the floor. She laughed at me.

"Well, Mar really needs some clean clothes and you're about the same height,"

I might have been about an inch or two taller than Marluxia, excluding his ears, but we were entirely different builds. I would certainly be surprised if he'd manage to fit his well built frame into a set of my admittedly somewhat effeminately shaped clothes. Larxene didn't seem to understand this obvious difference and was carefully picking out some of my nicest casual clothes for Marluxia.

"Where is he?" I asked, pulling out a smart, plain suit for myself. Larxene grinned wolfishly at me.

"He's in the shower. Come on, move it, I need to deliver these to him,"

"Whilst he's showering."

Larxene sighed dramatically.

"You obviously do not understand, Vexen," She said. "Look, there is a hot, wet, muscular, _naked_ werewolf in my shower and he's left the door ajar. Do you think I'm just going to wait here like some chaste saint until he's finished?"

I glared at her as I fished a pair of boxers out of the drawer for myself.

"You are disgusting," I said, grabbing my stolen clothes back and making my way to the door. "I'm going to leave these in the bathroom for Marluxia to collect once he's finished, _not that they'll even fit him_. You go downstairs. And preferably outside, never to return,"

She huffed and looked for all the world as though she would stamp her foot and begin screaming like the spoiled little brat she was.

"You always have to ruin my _fun_, Vexen," She moaned as I steered her in the right direction, away from Marluxia. That done, I quickly made my way to the bathroom, past the shower room, to change.

On the way out, I happened to catch a glance of Marluxia through the crack in the door, carelessly left open.

He was stretching, leaning into the water, and it cascaded in streams off his body, steam rising up where it fell. His muscles practically rippled as he moved, bending down to pick up the shower gel before straightening again, always so perfectly poised. There were countless scars marring his skin; scratches, slashes, bullet wounds, but they just made him more defined, more ruggedly attractive, more-

I realised I was staring and quickly made myself scarce, my face heating up like an oven. But the image was burned into my mind now, even as I caught the train to work, even as I discussed thermodynamics with Xigbar, even as we blew up a teddy bear to test our newest reactor, even as I returned home with the remains of the wraps that my colleagues and I couldn't finish at lunchtime in a plastic bag for Marluxia.

I'd just closed the front door behind my and thrown my keys onto the hall table when there was the most spectacular crash from upstairs, followed by sounds of muffled female outrage, and cruel laughter from the kitchen.

Rather than risk Larxene's impending wrath, I instead opted to go speak with Marluxia. If I could _just_ keep that mental image out of my head long enough not to blush furiously right in front of him.

I dropped the bag onto the table next to Marluxia.

"With love, everybody at work."

Marluxia sniffed once, and then attempted not to look wholly enthusiastic as he dug into the bag and pulled out the first half eaten wrap.

He was wearing one of my shirts, hanging open, presumably because it was - just as I predicted - too tight for him, and his old ripped and stained jeans from when he'd arrived at our house, held up with my favourite belt.

I gestured briefly upstairs.

"Larxene brought a friend home?"

"Axel, I think his name is. She said he got kicked out of his apartment and is going to stay here for a while,"

"I hope you told her to take her boyfriend and kindly shove off," I muttered. For God's sake, soon I'd be trying to raise half the population of the world on my modest salary. Well, half the world's male, good looking population, at any rate.

Larxene came storming down the stairs in her dressing down, a fiery redhead in tow, desperately attempting to pull his trousers on as he was dragged unceremoniously down the stairs.

"You bastard!" She screamed, ignoring us both as she all but threw Axel out of the front door, his bag flying after him. "And don't you _dare_ come crawling back!" She slammed the door with great gusto, then flicked her cropped, blonde hair with one hand and waltzed over to us with a smile. "Men. They're so easy. Hey, boys,"

She leaned forward on the peninsular unit, facing Marluxia and leaving just a little bit more cleavage than I would have liked on show.

"Oh, Marly," She said with a wave of her hand. "Axel broke the bed again. I'm really sorry,"

To my satisfaction, Marluxia didn't even look up as he pulled another wrap out of the bag. "It's okay. It was on its last legs, anyway,"

Larxene gave him a somewhat disapproving look as he shoved the leftover food into his mouth. "You're eating _again_?"

Marluxia simply wiped his mouth on my sleeve and ignored her, pulling the last wrap from the bag.

She soon left, disgruntled that Marluxia was showing more interest in the food than in her.

I pulled two ready meals out of the freezer for Larxene and I and threw them in the microwave. Marluxia watched me potter around the kitchen, loading dirty cups and plates into the dishwasher, collecting old magazines to recycle, throwing old odds and ends in the bin.

"Why don't you just pester Larxene until she gets a job?" Marluxia asked.

"Because she'd go crying to our mother and say I'm being horrible again. Slimy bitch,"

"Hm. Got any more food?"


	2. Revenge

I soon adjusted to having Marluxia in the house. Compared to Larxene, he was wonderfully low-maintenance, and I revelled in it. In the end, I took his measurements down to the local cheap clothes store and bought him a few sets of his own clothes, partly because I didn't like Larxene routinely stealing mine for him, but mostly because it was disturbing having her constantly ogling him in my too-tight trousers and open shirts.

He'd sleep anywhere; firstly in Larxene's room, moving on the sofa after they had an argument, then on the hall floor when it mysteriously fell apart the next day, and finally taking his place at the end of my bed. He seemed perfectly content to curl up in amongst the spare blankets and pillows, and it barely took a moment to get used to his heavy weight on my feet, the sound of his mumbling breaths as he slept, his distinctly canine scent subtly hanging in the air. Even once Larxene forgave him, he stayed in my room.

With Marluxia around, the volume of our rubbish halved. He would literally eat anything; leftovers from our meals, Larxene's charred attempts at cooking, gone off food, cores, crusts, shells, skins, husks, crumbs. We barely even needed a dishwasher any more; all we'd need to do would be to put a little detergent into Marluxia's mouth and wait for him to lick the plates clean. And since Larxene was always out, doing whatever she wasted her time with, and work kept me constantly busy, he was a godsend with keeping the house clean and tidy.

He had been with us for just over a week when we hit a problem.

I'd woken up one night to find Marluxia gone from his usual place at my feet. I presumed he'd gone outside for some fresh air (he spent a lot of time in our small garden, watering or weeding the plants or else simply relaxing, splayed out on the lawn), but when I went downstairs, I found him trembling in the middle of the kitchen floor. The fridge door was hanging listlessly open, empty boxes and cartons littering the floor.

As I approached, his head snapped up, a look of horror and guilt on his face.

Neither of us spoke as I checked the fridge to find it utterly empty. Ready meals, lunch meat, vegetables, fruit, cheese, sauces, yoghurt, fruit juices, eggs, milk - a whole week's worth of shopping for Larxene and I - Marluxia had consumed it all.

When I turned to face him, he was glaring at the floor, fists clenched. I slowly bent down to pick up one of the empty packages and his gaze fell on my hand, trailed up my arm and finally made contact with my eyes.

"I'm sorry," He muttered quietly. "I just couldn't-"

I shook my head.

"It's okay,"

"-Couldn't stop," Marluxia finished wretchedly.

I dropped all the boxes into the bin before sitting down next to the werewolf on the floor. After a few minutes of awkward silence, Marluxia tentatively leaned against my shoulder. I lifted one hand to gently stroke his rough, tangled hair. We stayed like that for a long time, until morning dawned slowly through the kitchen window.

At lunchtime, Larxene rang me.

"Vexen, you could have told me that Marluxia ate bloody everything,"

"And disturb you from your blissful slumber?" I clipped. "Perish the thought,"

Larxene huffed.

"Do me a favour and buy some appetite suppressants on the way home from work,"

"I thought you were off the diet now," Well, more like given up, but weight and women was one line I knew not to cross.

"Not for me, you idiot. For Marluxia. It's creeping me out how every time I see him, he's eating. It's not natural,"

"It is for him," I retorted. Larxene didn't reply. "What?"

"Just don't forget to get some, okay?"

"And how exactly do I breach this subject with him? "Hey, Marluxia, I have some pills for you to take because my little sister can't take the fact that you eat a lot."?"

Xigbar, who was sitting next to me until I could give the phone back, gave me a confused and mildly worried look. I ignored him.

"I'll do it if you want. All you have to do is buy the drugs. That's simple enough even for you, I swear,"

The lady in the pharmaceutical gave me a slightly concerned look when I brought the pills to the counter.

"Aren't you a little thin to be needing these?"

No harm in extracting a little pointless revenge for those endless insults, I thought.

"Oh, it's for my sister. To help her with her diet," I said. "She's fat. Really, _really_ fat, you know?" I demonstrated with my hands, creating a huge, round bulbous beer gut over my flat stomach as the lady swiped the little box against the barcode scanners. She gave me a disapproving look.

"You oughtn't be mean," She said as I handed over a fiver.

"I'm not. I swear, she really is," I even puffed out my cheeks for effect, and I really ought to have considered myself too old and too mature to do that.

"Have you perhaps considered taking her to your local GP?" the chemist asked, passing me back the pills. I pocketed them, nodding thoughtfully.

"Perhaps I should. Thanks,"

I laughed once I was out of the shop, and my mood was improved even further when I threw the box at Larxene and it neatly bounced off her head.

"Good luck," I said. "Try not to get eaten,"

"Rawr," She growled humourlessly back as she picked the pills up from the floor. I grinned at her, and left.

At dinner time (we'd ordered pizza), Marluxia still ate our unwanted scraps, but nothing more. We never brought the subject up again.

Another morning, I'd not had my coffee fix and had stumbled half asleep into the shower to find Marluxia already there, rinsing out his tail.

As I threw myself back out of the room, stuttering hasty apologies and feeling my face turn the shade of a beetroot, Marluxia simply switched the water off, and using his tail to cover up anything I really, really didn't want to see, pulled a towel off the rack and stepped into the corridor.

"All yours,"

When I came out later Larxene was still howling with laughter.

"Your face!" She exclaimed with great enthusiasm. "God, if only I had had a video camera. It was _that_ precious,"

I glared at her, but she still didn't shut up and continued to laugh at me all the way downstairs, through breakfast, upstairs again to fetch my things, then out the door and up the road before she finally got bored and trudged home again.

I truly, truly hated her. Particularly when Xigbar caught me blushing again that afternoon and demanded to know "if there was a girl". To put it in the man's ridiculous colloquialisms, _as if_.

I was quick to extract revenge. Charged with doing most of the washing, I conveniently left all of Larxene's underwear out to dry overnight a few days later. For once, the weather was on my side, and it rained all night.

Likewise, she retaliated. We were always taking out revenge on each other, occasionally using Marluxia as a tool. As far as I knew, he found it all hilarious.

As spring slowly faded into summer, everything became lethargic. It quickly became harder and harder to drag myself out of bed of a morning, and even Larxene spent a lot of her time outside in the garden away from the house which was turning into a human oven as we passed through an unusual May heat wave. The trains were even worse, filled with jostling, sweaty bodies, and every building was filled with the constant whir of air conditioning units.

Marluxia slowed down, too. In the colder months, he'd easily be up and active long before I was even awake, but recently I'd begun to leave for work before he woke.

One day, I came home late to find him still in bed. Larxene was sitting by him, a concerned look on her face.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"He says he doesn't feel well,"

"I'm just tired," Marluxia corrected dejectedly, curling up further into his little ball in amongst the spare pillows at the end of the bed.

"But you've been asleep all day," Larxene pointed out. "There's no way you can _still_ be tired. It's gotta be something else," She brushed his fringe away from his face to press one hand against his forehead. "Does he feel hot to you?"

He was warm, but everything was in this heat, so I shook my head.

Larxene frowned.

"I still think he's ill. He's been acting weirdly all week,"

"You're not in pain, are you?" I asked Marluxia.

"No... Just exhausted. I'll be fine. Just need some sleep,"

"Some _more_ sleep. You haven't even got up yet today,"

I left him with Larxene and wandered into the bathroom. There were Marluxia's appetite suppressants, lying on the work surface next to me. I picked them up, almost absent-mindedly. There were two left.

Suddenly a thought sparked in my mind - what if Marluxia hadn't just been eating so much because he had some kind of werewolf-induced eating disorder, but actually needed that much food to survive? Because, it that was the case, then no wonder he felt ill - because we had been effectively starving him.

I quickly returned to my bedroom, the little box still in my hand.

"Marluxia?" I asked. "How much do you weigh? Roughly,"

The werewolf gave me a confused look.

"I don't know. Ten stone? Maybe eleven? Why do you want to know?"

"I don't think you've been eating enough recently. I mean, maybe werewolves have a high base metabolism or something which means they actually need more food?"

"I don't even know what that means," Marluxia muttered. "But I'm not hungry,"

"Of course not," I replied. "Because you've been taking these,"

I waved the appetite suppressants at him. There was a long, awkward pause.

"But-" Larxene began, and stopped.

I threw the box into the bin.

"We'll manage," I said.

And manage we did. Half eaten lunches from work were easy to wheedle off my colleagues under the premise of forcing Larxene to cook her own food or else eat these. Whilst shopping, I always bought extra, super-economy food. Meat was Marluxia's favourite. I got into the routine of bringing home cheap steaks from the supermarket for him. He ate them raw, and loved it.

Slowly, the days became hotter and hotter. It gradually came to my attention that there was another problem that needed dealing with.

I found Marluxia in the garden, sprawled out in the dappled shade of our old apple tree.

"Hey,"

He glanced up at me as I sat down next to him, nodding a little in acknowledgement.

I got straight to the point.

"What are we going to do next full moon?"

"I was wondering when you were going to ask," Marluxia replied bluntly. "I guess wrecking Larxene's room again won't be an option,"

I laughed a little.

"I certainly wouldn't mind, but I don't think my income could stretch as far as to completely redecorate her room every month,"

Marluxia nodded, turning away to gaze up at the clear, cloudless sky through the leaves of the tree above us.

"I suppose I shall simply disappear, and come back the next morning,"

"That doesn't seem fair," I said. "What if something happens?"

"I can look after myself," Marluxia sniffed.

That was the end of the conversation. More days passed and the moon grew, became fat and bloated, glowed in the clear summer nights. I could barely contain my anxiety. What if Marluxia came back after the full moon in the same state he'd been in when Larxene first brought him in? What if he never came home at all?

"You're becoming attached," Larxene noted flippantly on the evening of the full moon. Marluxia was upstairs, having a bath before he left, and we were downstairs, watching TV.

"Oh, shut up,"

"I'm being serious," Larxene pressed. "The way he sleeps at the end of your bed, and you feed him almost all of your food. I'd not be surprised if you started scratching him behind his ears soon,"

"You're being stupid," I said. Honestly. Just because Marluxia looked a bit like a dog didn't mean he was one.

"Sleep well tonight and then say that," Larxene replied wryly.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nuh uh. You told me to shut up, remember?"

She was right, though. That night, I barely slept, tossing and turning. What if he was hunted down by a group of men thinking it sporting to beat a werewolf to within an inch of its life? What if he was found by the police? What if he was found by some well meaning guy just like me and shot through the head because that guy happened not to have a bitchy little sister with her heart set on keeping him?

I even could have sworn that I could hear howls drifting through the open window as the stars moved across the sky. I tried reading. I took sleeping pills. But in the end it was all I could do to lie in bed, counting down the seconds until Marluxia would - or wouldn't - return.

"Vexen. Vexen, wake up. What's wrong with you?"

"Too many sleeping pills again, I expect. He always does this."

"Huh?" I tried to prise my eyes open, but they were heavy with the artificially induced sloth of sleeping pills. Somebody was shaking me. "G-geddoff-Marluxia."

"I'm home."

I sat up abruptly.

"You're okay, thank God,"

"Of course I am," Marluxia laughed. "I haven't been a werewolf for seven years for nothing. You can let go of me now."

I quickly unwrapped my arms from Marluxia's waist. He was still slightly damp, presumably from showering, dressed in clean clothes and with a towel resting on his shoulders. He was looking straight into my eyes, an amused smile on his lips.

"What? I was worried about you,"

"Nothing. Larxene's right. You really are getting attached,"

"Larxene!" I exclaimed, glaring at my sister. It was bad enough that she had these stupid, foolish ideologies, let alone posting them to Marluxia, of all people. She simply grinned at me.

"Revenge for telling Marluxia that I was a slimy bitch?"

"Oh, come on, you are,"

"And you're a cantankerous geezer,"

I considered this.

"Touché."

Marluxia chuckled.

"Oh, you're not that old, are you?"

"Only hitting the big three-oh next year," Larxene said, grinning.

"Don't remind me," I moaned. "I feel old enough as it is,"

"You're only-" Marluxia quickly counted on his fingers. How odd was that? A fully grown man and formidable werewolf, counting on his fingers.

But anyway. "-only five years older than me,"

"Physically, maybe. But Vexen was an old man when he was fifteen years old," Larxene said, and I had to admit that there was truth in her insult. I was the kind of man destined to be wizened and wrinkly, shuffling around a library and complaining about the "good old days". Hell, I did that already.

"I was a jerk when I was fifteen," Marluxia said. He inspected his calloused, clawed hands. Even they were scarred. "But I guess I got my just desserts in the end," He muttered with an air of resignation. Larxene gave him a cuddle.

"Awh, don't say that. I think that doggie ears suit you,"

"Wolf," Marluxia corrected, almost automatically. "They're wolf ears,"

"Wolfie ears, then."

"Are you determined to strip me of all dignity?"

I was attempted to ask "What dignity?", but that would have been harsh. For all his rugged scars, messy hair and canine appearance, he was dignified. He might have spent his life being broken and crushed, but he was still a proud man, and I doubted that any words or knives or guns could ever change that.

I envied him.

"Anyway, Vexen, I said you were ill again for work,"

"What?!"

"Well, it is nearly eleven o'clock and you wouldn't wake up."

I sighed.

"Larxene, you've got to stop doing this. Splash me with water or something if necessary. If I have too many sick days this month I'll lose my job,"

"Oh, come on, it's not as if you're ever actually ill or anything. Besides, it was only four times,"

"That's almost an entire week I've lost,"

"Whatever. Loosen up. Seriously,"

She stomped out.

I flopped back onto the bed.

"Might as well use my impromptu day off work to get extra sleep," I mumbled, closing my eyes and pulling the duvet back over my body. A few moments later, I felt a heavy weight settle on my feet, right where it should be.

I slept well. At least, until Larxene decided to be terribly, terribly helpful and pour a whole bucketful of water over my head to wake me up halfway through the afternoon.

About a week or two after the full moon, I came home from work to find Marluxia sitting at the desk in my room, scribbling furiously on the word processor of my computer. A web browser was open next to it on the coffee table screen.

As soon as I came in, he minimised all his screens.

"Larxene said I could use this. Her's is just a normal touch screen, but I wanted one with 3D imaging,"

I shrugged. I didn't mind. My computer was an old one, anyway, one of the first models with three dimensional capabilities. I'd always wanted to upgrade, maybe to a graphics touch screen like some of the ones at work, but they were all hideously expensive.

"What did you want it for, anyway?"

"Just doing a little research," Marluxia replied smoothly.

"And scribbling,"

"I couldn't remember the keyboard command,"

"What're you writing, anyway?"

"Nothing of importance,"

"Really."

Marluxia sighed, bringing up the screen again. Messily scrawled words hung in the air above the desk.

"Just stupid fantasies," He muttered, scratching a deep cross-shaped gouge through the jumble of notes and sentences. They scattered.

I pulled up the stool to sit next to him.

"What kind of stupid fantasies?"

Marluxia paused, watching me again with those piercing, stone blue eyes.

"I can trust you, right, Vexen?"

"Of course."

He turned back to the screen, fiddling with his notes.

"Rights. For monsters like me. I want to overthrow this corrupt system that declares me the murderer."

I looked at his notes. There was a mind map, with SYSTEM in capitals in the middle, surrounded by notes and points. Headquarters, leaders, bases, weapons, etc, all had been compiled into lists and more diagrams. There was more; a list of basic rights: protection by law, jobs, free healthcare, access to public services and places, education. Much of it had been scrawled over. Some was highlighted in blood red.

"But it's impossible," Marluxia finished helplessly. "How can one werewolf change a mindset three hundred years old? Try to infiltrate the system, I'll be shot down. Try to protest, I'll be shot down. I don't even have to do _anything_ to be criminalized,"

"There must be others like you," I said thoughtfully. "Other people who have been marked and are trying to live good, honest lives,"

"But how do I reach them? What can we do? Nobody who wants to make a difference can, and nobody who can will,"

"I would," I said unthinkingly.

Marluxia glared at me.

"Don't be stupid."

Indignation rose in my throat as Marluxia instantly shot me down.

"What? I mean it."

"You wouldn't," Marluxia said, refusing to look me in the eye as he shut down the computer. "I might be living with you now, but in your eyes, I'm still a werewolf. You don't trust me, or any of my kind. Don't think that saving a single man changes anything. You're all the same,"

With a flick of his tail, he was gone, leaving me horrified in his wake.

Partly because he hadn't believed me, partly because he'd uttered a gross generalisation of normal people, but mostly because as unreasonable as he'd been, he was still right.


	3. Response

Two days later, and there was a corpse just two or three hundred yards down the road. At first, they'd thought it human, until they found the remains of a claw like tattoo on a shredded cheek, stumps on the body's back where the wings and tail used to be, hands and feet horribly deformed where they'd been pushed into gloves and shoes too small and too tight in the effort to appear human.

Nobody else seemed to understand but Larxene and I, that this poor, pathetic creature was only trying to return to something like the life it had once had. To all the others, it was a lying, scheming, treacherous monster.

It was funny how having a werewolf in the house took your previously unshakeable perspective of life and turned it completely on its head.

I woke up early one morning, disturbed by the light shining softly through a crack in the curtains.

I sat up slowly, hoping that I wouldn't wake up Marluxia, sleeping deeply on my legs, tail curled around his hunched, scarred body. We'd bought him a set of pyjamas, but he was sleeping in nothing more than boxers tonight. It was simply too hot, even at night, for such superfluous overgarments.

I reached out to touch his hair, oddly compelled to stroke it like you would a dog. My fingers had barely made contact when his eyes snapped open, staring straight at me with eyes already gleaming with full alertness.

"Vexen," He said, and laid his head back on his arm. His eyes did not leave mine. "It's early,"

It wasn't a complaint, just an offhand comment.

"I didn't mean to wake you,"

"It's fine," He murmured back.

Marluxia had been badly affected by the attack and even somebody as thick-headed as Larxene could see that. Perhaps it scared him; painfully aware of his own vulnerability, even as he hid, tucked away out of danger, in our house. I rather hypothesised that he was now driven by regret - after all, perhaps that gargoyle might not have been so brutally killed had he been outside on the streets that night. And we both knew that this story was one echoed all around the country, every month, every week, maybe even every day. So common that the press didn't bother to give it more than a few inches in the local newspaper. The Nationals didn't even cover it.

Attacks like these rarely occurred in broad daylight - one could get warned by the police for killing even a monster in the presence of a child or anybody weak of heart, without good reason - and no monster would try to hurt a human in broad daylight. They'd be killed, instantly.

Instead, the slaughter of the marked was reserved for the night, where nobody would see, where the survivors could tell of a horrific beast attacking them from nowhere and how that valiantly fought it down. Everybody knew that this wasn't what happened, but nobody ever said a word.

And yet Marluxia lay here, almost listlessly, watching me with distant, stone blue eyes.

Suddenly, I knew that he hated his dependence on Larxene and I, his helplessness, the way he was _trapped_, and I knew that I would feel the same.

I reached out again, tentatively, to rest my hand on Marluxia's hair. His expression faltered a little, eyes fluttering closed.

There was a patch of hair around his ears that was softer than the rest, and I began to stroke it gently. To my surprise, Marluxia did not bat me away, or even give me a half hearted glare. He simply let out a little murmur, and leaned into my touch, seemingly genuinely appreciative.

"Why?" He murmured after a while of comfortable, easy silence.

"Why what?" I asked.

"Why kill that gargoyle? It was obvious that she did nothing wrong,"

"Some people think that just existing is wrong if you're marked,"

Marluxia scoffed.

"Most people," He corrected, voice sardonic, but even more disillusioned. "The problem is, if you're a werewolf, or vampire, or whatever, you simply stop being a person, in the eyes of normal humans. Less so for angels. They, I think, understand. But they don't have much power,"

"A lot of politicians are angels," I pointed out.

"Yes, but they rarely speak out against the humans ruling alongside them, for fear of risking their positions. Taking down any opposer of the current regime is simply too easy. The government has been corrupted," Marluxia replied.

"You seem very knowledgeable about that,"

"Ask any of the marked. They'll all tell you the same thing. Perhaps we were a threat once, back in the twenty-first century, but times have changed since then," Marluxia continued anyway. "As a species, we've been crushed into the dirt. We don't even have our pride any more - just look what that gargoyle tried to do to herself. All in vain."

The twenty-first century - around twenty-fifty - had seen some serious changes to the human race unlike any before. There'd always been sceptics; fanatics, but that decade showed a massive increase in sightings of all kinds of horrific monsters, from all people. Vampires became fact, not fiction. Werewolves prowled the streets of villages, towns, cities. Suddenly, when you looked up to see a gargoyle on the eves of a church, it would move.

Chaos broke out. Hundreds upon thousands - maybe even millions - of people were killed. The military moved in. Democracy was forgotten.

Things calmed down in the dawn of the twenty-second century. Laws and regimes were brought in to take down the monsters - and keep them down. A system of "marking" was brought in - any monster found would have the appropriate mark placed onto their cheeks as a warning to all; one step below killing brought about from animal rights activists. Everybody settled down to a new era of a different kind of personal safety. Carrying guns became normal, just in case. Attacks from the marked became rare, became unheard of.

Everybody knows the history of the marked. It's taught, in Third Year, Secondary School, as part of the history syllabus. I know. I learned it.

I remember watching the video footage, like a home made horror movie. 2D. Bad quality. We heard all about the humans killed, families ripped apart.

Funny. We were never told about the other side.

My alarm went off, just then, and I was forced to roll out of the bed - our bed, I supposed, now; Marluxia had been sleeping in it for long enough - and get ready for work. Marluxia himself stayed there, watching me silently, almost even intently.

My thoughts were on him as Xigbar boasted at work about everything and anything.

"So we were thinking about organising a hunt this weekend - Vexen? Ve~xen...? You in there, space cowboy?"

"Huh?"

"I said, us dudes were thinking about organising a hunt. You wanna come?"

"A hunt?"

Xigbar leaned back from the edge of my cubicle, throwing his arms comically high into the air.

"Ye~es, slowcoach, a hunt. You know, with guns and shit?"

"Language, Xigbar," Somebody called from their workstation. He gave them the middle finger.

"Whatever, mother fucker. I gotta explain to old Grandma Vexen here what a hunt is. Where've you been living? Century twenty-two?"

"Twenty four, last I checked," I muttered dully. "I just wanted to know what it was you wanted to hunt,"

Xigbar shrugged.

"Apparently there's been sightings of a werewolf running round the place, causing trouble. Since obviously the police can't be trusted to deal with it, I thought we'd do them a favour and dispose of it for them. Reports say pink hair, would you believe?"

_Marluxia._

I froze.

"Vexen?"

"Pink hair," I echoed quietly. "You... you can't,"

"I know, sounds ridiculous, right? I bet it's actually brown and somebody's just having a laugh," Xigbar continued, oblivious. Goddamn oblivious! He was talking about killing _Marluxia_, the man who lived in my house and ate all my scraps and slept at the end of the bed and Xigbar, my colleague and mutual acquaintance if not friend, was going to _kill _him.

I felt anger boil inside me, raw and furious.

"You're sick," I muttered. "You kill hi- that werewolf, and you're a murderer,"

Everything in the office turned silent. Everybody was suddenly listening to me and I realised that I had done something exceedingly, inexplicably stupid.

Xigbar laughed, and it didn't help to ease the sudden tension.

"Vexen, in case you haven't noticed, werewolves aren't _people_,"

Hell, I'd gone this far. I couldn't give up now. I let my anger fuel me.

"They are," I insisted. "Look a marked man in the eye and tell me he is not a person,"

"Why?" Xigbar mocked, "Have you looked a marked man in the eye? Because I have. And you know what I saw? I saw a heartless murderer."

"There hasn't been a human murdered by one of the marked in this city for nearly three years," I hissed before I could catch myself. "And before that, six,"

"Yeah, and you know why that is? _Us_, out there with our guns, risking our lives to keep everybody else safe. What's got into you, Vexen?"

I shook my head. This battle was futile.

But then again...

Marluxia. What would he say if he knew that I'd simply stepped away from these people, refused to get involved, and just l_et_ them go out and slaughter innocent people? He'd said that we were all the same... now I really knew what he meant. Because even if I felt differently to the others, I'd still never have the guts to speak out for my beliefs.

I stood up, and left.

I washed my hands of their actions and responsibility, just like that. Just like the coward I was.

"You're home early."

"Yes." I replied, and left it at that.

Larxene was lounging in the kitchen, feet on the table, a newspaper in her lap.

"What happened?"

I didn't look her in the eye.

"Where's Marluxia?"

"Out. I dunno. Why? D'you want him for something?"

I sat down heavily.

"I'm a horrible man."

"Yeah, you can say that again."

"I mean it, Larxene. You know what? We think we're so good for keeping Marluxia in our home, but really, we're not doing a single thing to help,"

"What's got into you?"

"What's got into me?" I repeated. "What's got into me? What's got into me is _Marluxia_; I can't go an hour without thinking of him, I am _terrified_ that one day he will leave and never come back, and my friends at work are planning to _kill_ him like it's a good thing and I can't do one single fucking thing about it because I'm too much of a goddamn coward to make a stand..."

There was a pause.

Larxene folded up the tabloid newspaper and set it down at her place on the table.

"You know," She said thoughtfully, "You've changed a lot since Marluxia arrived,"

"What does that have to do with anything?" I demanded.

"Well, a lot. You care about Marluxia? Then do something about him."

"I can't," I said miserably. "I don't have the guts to stand up to Xigbar and his sadistic friends. I could be fired for that kind of thing."

"Mind you," Larxene said, "Walking out of work in the middle of the afternoon doesn't look too good, either,"

"I couldn't just sit there and have him _laughing_ like that. He wants to kill Marluxia. He's a murderer! And I'm too chicken to do anything about it."

"Just tell him that you don't want him to be endangered, you know, that werewolf is very dangerous, I heard about it from a friend of a friend, etc, etc," Larxene suggested.

"Out of the question. Xigbar is a thrill seeker. That would just make him want to do it more."

"Well, keep Marluxia inside at the weekend, then. Easy enough. He'll follow you like a puppy."

"What if Xigbar kills some other marked?"

"That's not you problem."

"It _is_!" I exclaimed. "Don't you understand? I _know_ what he is going to do, and I have one freaking chance to stop him. And I can't. People will die and it's practically going to be my fault,"

"Don't let yourself think that." Larxene said. "Look. You saved Marluxia, right? It's something. It's not like just one person can take down, like, the entire government or anything, so don't try,"

"_You_ saved him," I corrected dejectedly. "I was going to kill him."

"Yeah, but you were only trying to do the right thing. And I think the right thing for you to do now is just make sure that Marluxia stays safe. And don't tell him about Xigbar; it'll only worry him. Okay?"

"I..."

Larxene glared at me.

"Fine."

And indeed, we didn't tell Marluxia. Well, Larxene, credit to her, didn't.

But I was a terrible liar and Marluxia could instantly tell that I was tense. I told him everything - even the fact that I wasn't going to tell him, and he wasn't too pleased.

Once I was finished, we sat in silence on the sofa for a long time.

"I'm sorry," I finally said.

"No, it's fine." His voice was a little bit strained, but that was understandable. After all, we were looking at the prospect of some poor, innocent person being murdered. Any normal human being, we'd go to the police. But here it was just us, and nobody on our side because everyone else let their hearts and minds be governed by fear and propaganda and four hundred years of biased history. Fair? No.

"Maybe there's something I can do," I offered after a while. Perhaps Marluxia would think of something, some way to stop Xigbar or keep the Marked safe from his bullets. But he simply shook his head.

"It's a dog eat dog world out there. We've long come to accept the fact that sooner or later our luck will run out and we'll be killed. Some even call it a release. Short of actually rounding everybody up here on the night..."

"Why not?" I said quickly before I could change my mind or acknowledge how stupid an idea it was. "Why not? This is the only safe place in the town, but it's only for a night. They'd trust you."

"But there must be dozens of them in this town alone," Marluxia said. "And we don't know how far Xigbar might be willing to go. If he finds nothing in this town, who's to say he won't move to the next in search of victims?"

"We have to try," I said hollowly, bowing my head. "I'll never forgive myself if I don't even try."

It was amazing, the speed at which Marluxia worked to round up the Marked. There was a coven of Vampires he knew living in the outskirts of the town and they all (by and large) agreed to help collect other, lone monsters. I weaselled the times and places from Xigbar under the pretence of joining the hunt, then pulled out at the last minute. Even Larxene did her part, monster-proofing the ground floor of the house in preparation for Saturday night.

Marluxia estimated the underground population of our town to be about fifty or so people - much more than we thought we could comfortably fit into the house - but when Saturday evening came around, we realised that we needn't have bothered worrying.

One of the main reasons why I'd chosen the house was the size of the garden - when I'd moved it had been all but a wasteland, barren and overgrown, but I'd put a lot of time and effort into clearing it up and now it was home to busy flowerbeds, a collection of fruit trees, and a large lawn where a large group of werewolves and gargoyles now congregated. The vampires had unanimously decided to stay inside, at least until night fell. Everybody was there.

The sun was just dipping below the horizon as I shut and locked the front door with a small sigh. Hanging the key on the rack, I turned to return to the kitchen and nearly jumped out of my skin at the vampire hovering behind me.

"Sorry," I said, "You surprised me,"

He shook his head, silver hair swinging.

"It's fine. I wanted to thank you, for letting us stay here tonight,"

"It's the least I can do," I replied a little awkwardly.

"Why?" He asked.

"Why what?"

"Why let us into your home?"

"I'd feel like a murderer if that man killed any of you,"

"The death of a Marked hardly constitutes as murder."

"It does for me,"

"... You are a strange man indeed, Vexen. For that we are all grateful."

It was around one o'clock that Demyx arrived at our door.

I'd been talking to some random werewolf who was raiding the fridge when there was a crash and mad pounding at the door. Larxene rushed to open it, tripping over a gaggle of vampires in the hallway and finally reached the doorway, flinging it open. A gargoyle, bloodied and coughing, fell into the hallway, unconscious.

Marluxia was there immediately, lifting him into his arms and laying him gently on the sofa - the new, previously unstained sofa.

People crowded around as he grabbed antiseptic wipes and bandages and patched the poor thing up. There were bullets. Marluxia used his claws to pull one out. He tossed it to one of the vampires.

"Whose is it?"

"That scarred man."

"Ah."

Everybody was deathly silent as Marluxia worked, all desperately willing the gargoyle to wake up. He coughed and spluttered and then lay still. So still he could almost be-

"Fuck." Marluxia hissed, dropping the bandages and rushing to lace his blood-soaked fingers and push his hands against the monster's chest, slamming down with his whole weights. Again and again.

There was a horrifying crack and the gargoyle jolted spasmodically, coughing blood. Marluxia did not stop.

"What are you doing?!" Larxene screamed, tearing ineffectually at his arms. "You'll kill him!"

Marluxia persisted, growling so viciously that even Larxene got the hint and stepped away. The gargoyle coughed and spluttered again, and slowly, his ragged breathing returned.

Marluxia rolled him onto his side and tipped his head up to open his airways and allow him to breathe.

"He'll live," He said quietly. One of the younger werewolves cheered.

We moved him to my bedroom upstairs, laid him on the bed, watched him carefully for any signs of movement. It was a few hours later that he regained consciousness, blinking deliriously in the light.

"Am I dead?"

"No. Why weren't you with the others?" Marluxia, who hadn't left the gargoyle's side, asked immediately.

"I-I wanted to make sure that everybody else was safe first. But then I got lost. And then I got shot."

"You're lucky you reached us in time," I added. The gargoyle - no, the boy; beneath his grey skin and horns and wings and claws, he still was just a boy - grinned a little.

"Yeah. I'd totally have been a goner,"

"What's your name?" Larxene asked.

"Oh. Demyx."

That was how Demyx joined our household. He wasn't in any fit state to return to the streets like the others did in the small hours of Sunday morning, so he took over my bed and became the new object of Larxene's affections.

Marluxia and I slept on the sofa. It wasn't ideal, but it was the best we could manage. I began to save up for a spare bed to go in the box room - which we'd been meaning to clear out for ages anyway - for Demyx. It was strange, that. Of all the people staying at our house, Marluxia would presumably have been the most eligible for a new room, and yet it seemed implausible these days that he's sleep anywhere other than at my feet.

Demyx recovered quickly, soon daring to be up and about - despite Marluxia's strict orders to stay in bed until his injuries had completely healed. He must have been in his early twenties, just a few years younger than Marluxia, but he still acted like a little child. It was heart warming and heart breaking at the same time. Despite his predicament, he always smiled, he couldn't thank us enough when we were barely doing anything to help, and he was in awe of everything he came into contact with. Particularly Marluxia.

As far as I was aware, the werewolf disliked him for his unwittingly insulting remarks, lackadaisical attitude and childlike wonder, but Demyx never even noticed, simply chatting to everybody unconditionally, the innocent smile never leaving his face.

Xigbar was in a bad mood on Monday.

"Good hunt?" I asked as he plonked himself down at his computer, grumbling to himself.

"Oh, we found one. A gargoyle. But it got away. Other than that, nothing. Even the coven was empty. It's like somebody gave them a head's up and they all fucked off for the night,"

I tried my best to don a mask of false sympathy, but all I could really muster was a sarcastic "Better luck next time,"

"Yeah, well. Won't be for a while. Gun's got to go in for repairs,"

"I thought you had several,"

"Vexen, you don't understand everything! The others are just backup. But I can't go hunting without my lucky hunting gun,"

"Of course."

"Oh, speaking of lucky, boss left a message for you before you arrived. Wanted to speak to you."

"Very lucky," I muttered, cursing inside as I stood up. This _had_ to be about the fact that I'd taken a week's worth of days off in the past month alone. The best I could pray for would be a warning, but knowing my luck it would end up being far, far worse...

So it was with no small amount of dread that I took the lift up to the top floor of the building, crossed the short corridor, and knocked on the door to Xemnas Heartsista's office.

"Come in,"

I uncertainly slid the door inside and walked in.

"You wanted to see me, sir?"

"Yes. Take a seat."

Nobody saw Mr Heartsista very much at all; usually if he wanted a message sent to his employees he would use his second in command, Saïx. Those who held meetings with him usually didn't return at all.

I sat down on the plush chair in front of his desk and waited for him to speak. He took his time, sorting through odd papers and documents before finally looking up towards me with dark eyes.

"Why?" He said, simply.

"I'm sorry, sir?"

"On Saturday night, you took almost the entire Marked population of this town in to your home. Why?"

How had he known?!

"I... I simply didn't want them to get hurt, sir. I believe that they are just as much human as normal people. Why do you want to know?"

Mr Heartsista ignored my question.

"And you have been keeping a young werewolf named Marluxia in your home, and most recently the gargoyle known as Demyx,"

"Y-yes," I said.

"People of your kind are rare, Vexen," He said thoughtfully. Then he lifted one hand to his left cheek, scrabbled at his jaw line a little, then pulled his skin away to reveal, underneath, a crescent moon identical to Marluxia's.

He laid the latex patch down on the desk then carefully reached to his eyes and pulled out two coloured contact lenses. Underneath, his irises burned gold.

Saïx was doing the same, peeling away false skin to reveal the tattoo, and yellow eyes as intense as his superior's.

"So I'm sure you'll understand," The man said from his position of leaning against the wall in the corner, "That we cannot allow this to happen any longer. Marluxia and Demyx need to return to where they belong,"

"I'm sorry?" I said again, confused. "I'm helping them. Why would you want to-"

"The simple fact is that the situation with the Marked is far too complex for you to involve yourself," Xemnas interrupted. "This is nothing to do with you, Vexen."

"But I saved their lives!" I exclaimed. "Surely that's a good thing?"

"Vexen, have you never once thought _why_, back in twenty-fifty, the Marked began to appear? It was evolution. Evolution's way of devising the _strong_ from the _weak_. And it worked, worked to such success that no natural selection had ever been able to achieve. Now humans are freed from the weak, and as a species they may progress as always should have done,"

"I don't understand," I said helplessly.

"The weak," Xemnas elaborated, "Are the Marked. All those with inferior genes are transformed into what are perceived as monsters - and then culled. Only the strong survive in this community - but it is still one of democracy, ethics and morals. No more money wasted on finding cures for the diseased - they simply become unwanted. No money wasted on educating the eternally stupid, or caring for the mentally ill. It's a perfect world. We don't need fools like you trying to be nice."

"But _why_?" I demanded. "You're werewolves too, why would you want others like you to die?! Shouldn't you be on their side?!"

Saïx smiled at me, hollow and cruel.

"And then," He said, "There are the exceptionally strong."

"But why should you care for the progression of the human race?"

"We have our own agenda," Xemnas said. "You do not need to know any further information."

He reached down into the drawer of his desk and pulled out a gun. It was small, but one of the latest and most powerful models.

"Two bullets," He told me, pulling out a plastic bag. "One for Marluxia-" click. One golden missile laid on the table, "and one for Demyx." Another bullet thudded hollowly beside the first.

"You can't make me," I said, horrified. "You can't make me kill them. I _won't_."

"Let me show you the alternative, then."

A third item was pulled from the drawer - some kind of stamp, the base about two inches wide. Xemnas showed me the design and I immediately recognised the bat shaped emblem embossed on its surface.

"You see, Vexen," He said pleasantly, "Werewolves, vampires, gargoyles - they do not become so simply by _chance_. No... their fates are decided for them. For the advancement of the human race. The Organisation decides."

I ran.

I slammed the door open with the palm of my hand, rushing through, taking the stairs down, two or three at a time. They didn't even bother following me, but I had to run, anywhere to get away from those chilling gold and yellow gazes.

_The Organisation…_

I shivered involuntarily, forcing my pace to slow as I entered my office block. I quickly grabbed my things from my desk, then left without another word.

My job was as good as lost anyway.


	4. Revelation

Halfway home things just hit me and I very almost had an embarrassing public break down on the train.  
But the horrific reality was just kicking in; I was just about to lose my job, the only income that was supporting me, my extravagant little sister, an eternally hungry werewolf and a badly injured gargoyle. And somehow I'd been caught up in some kind of conspiracy radiating around the Marked - a conspiracy that I'd, somehow, have to tell Marluxia.  
To put it simply: I was screwed.

He was lounging on the sofa in the front room when I slipped numbly, like clockwork, in through the door.  
"Larxene's staying with Seifer," He said as I sat down - roles reversed - by his feet. "She said that you could probably do with not having her around particularly since Demyx is staying now. Why are you home so early?"  
"I didn't feel well," I replied, leaning back against the edge of the old couch and pressing a hand to my face. I was sweating.  
"What happened?" Marluxia asked dully. He sat up, reaching up to tug my arm down, removing the only barrier between us. I sighed, glaring away.  
"Nothing."  
"Xigbar?"  
"I don't want to talk about it."  
"What happened?" Marluxia demanded again, voice lower. I felt the weight distribution on the pillows move as he stood, then crouched down in front of me, forcing me to momentarily meet his eyes. I quickly looked away once again.  
"I said, _I don't want to talk about it_."  
"_Vexen._"  
"Leave me alone."  
"No."  
"Why not?" I challenged. Marluxia sighed.  
"Look at me, Vexen," He said quietly. I refused, mouth drawn in a tight line, once more a petulant child. "Look at me. For God's sake!"  
He grabbed my shoulders and shook me until I was forced to stare into his eyes.  
"Look at me," He repeated. "And look at Demyx. Our l_ives_ are in your hands. If it weren't for you, we'd both be dead. The simple fact is that we _need_ you, Vexen. Forgive me for wanting to know exactly what has happened at work. You'd tell me what it was unless it was about the Marked."  
I couldn't help it when I fell forwards, off my place on the sofa, into Marluxia's chest. But the werewolf simply wrapped his arms around me, tugging me so close that I could feel his very heartbeat quicken against my cheek.  
"I'm sorry," I mumbled. "I failed you. Both of you. All of you. Everybody."  
"It's okay," He whispered, reaching up to stroke my hair as though I was the one who needed or even deserved the comfort. "Just tell me what happened."  
I didn't know how to explain. Xemnas, Saïx, the "Organisation"... I decided to leave that out for now.  
"Marluxia, I... I think I just lost my job."  
He didn't immediately react to my words, simply asking:  
"Why did you leave?"  
I had a few false starts.  
"Marluxia," I finally managed, "Have you ever heard of the Organisation?"  
He shook his head and I felt his hair brush the top of my forehead. I continued.  
"It's a group, Marluxia. A group of people that _decide_."  
"Decide what?" He pressed.  
"Decide that Marked. Decide _who_ becomes a monster. My boss is part of the Organisation. He tried to make me kill you,"  
"Are you sure?"  
"Yes, I'm sure!" I cried. "He had a gun. One bullet on the desk for you. One bullet for Demyx. He's going to _kill_ you, and I don't understand why,"  
"Why wouldn't a man kill a werewolf?" Marluxia remarked sarcastically. I clenched my fists tighter, fingers pressing and curling around the cheap fabric of his shirt.  
"He wasn't a _man_. He was just like you. He had the crescent moon, on his cheek, and his eyes like slits..."  
There was silence, the two of us curled on the floor, clinging to each other like any moment now we'd simply fall apart. At last it was Marluxia who spoke.  
"Oh."

---

Demyx laughed just the same at the dinner table, the old guitar of mine that he'd found and latched onto the other day lying as always in his lap, and I couldn't break the news to him. Marluxia was silent as he ate, never making eye contact with either of us. Demyx chatted to both of us and suddenly I wished that the almost equally talkative Larxene were back with us again so at least there was somebody to uphold our end of the conversation.  
Eventually even Demyx fell into listless silence for several awkward, horrible minutes.  
The phone rang and I nearly jumped out of my skin, but recomposed myself and hurried to fetch it.  
"Hello?"  
"We need to talk."  
I matched the voice to a face after a moment - Saïx. I growled a little in the back of my throat.  
"I think I made myself perfectly clear earlier today."  
"You ran, Vexen. Do you honestly think that two werewolves would vouch for yet another death of their kind?"  
I frowned.  
"But you said-"  
"I know what I said." Saïx interrupted calmly. "They're always watching. If you'd just have taken the gun then maybe you'd have received our message."  
"I don't understand."  
"You don't need to - yet. Come into work tomorrow. Act as though Marluxia and Demyx are dead and we shall talk further. We can help."  
"Why should I trust you?" I demanded. Saïx didn't skip a beat.  
"Why should you trust Marluxia? You know how much he hates normal humans."  
I looked over at Marluxia, still eating at the table with his head down, and felt a lump rise in my throat. How _did_ I know I could trust that man, anyway?  
"Vexen. It was a rhetorical question. You ought to know by now that he's trustworthy."  
There was a click, and silence, as the other man hung up on me. And suddenly I felt so small, so utterly lost in a world that was far, far too big for me, and then I realised that I was terrified, of getting caught somewhere to dangerous for me to handle, of finding myself helpless in the face of an unbreakable system, of ever losing Marluxia...

---

"You're worried."  
I had transcribed my conversation with Saïx to Marluxia and Demyx, the former of whom hadn't looked convinced and the latter who didn't appear to understand at all.  
Demyx was staying in Larxene's room - he said he quite liked it there and neither Marluxia nor I could work out why - and Marluxia was in his usual place at the end of my bed. We'd settled down for the night almost half an hour ago.  
"I'm just thinking," I assured him.  
"You keep sighing, and fidgeting. I can't get to sleep unless you stay still. Usually you're like a log."  
"I'm sorry," I said quietly. "I just don't really know what to think or who to trust,"  
There was a rustle of blankets and I became aware of Marluxia carefully climbing up the bed towards me, patting each section of duvet before placing his hand down to avoid putting his weight on me. A few times he encountered my hip, and once my elbow. Then he sat down heavily by my shoulder.  
"You know you can trust me," He said. It was a simple statement. "And Demyx, loathe as I am to admit it,"  
"What's wrong with Demyx?" I asked.  
"I think it's nothing more than a personality clash. Look, Vexen, think about it. How long have I been sleeping in your bed? I know that the only thing that can wake you up is your alarm. If I wanted to, I could have killed you in your sleep months ago,"  
"That's very reassuring." I deadpanned, letting out another sigh. "Why do you still sleep there, anyway?" I asked, waggling my foot at the pile of blankets at the end of the bed. I was eager to change the subject. The thought of the bond of trust between either of us - forged without my noticing up until now, somehow - breaking down was an ugly one.  
"The sofa's not so comfortable, and it'll probably break again soon," Marluxia explained, shrugging.  
"It can't be comfortable sleeping curled up in a little ball like that."  
"What do you want me to do, sleep lying next to you?" Marluxia asked sarcastically.  
There was a pause.  
"Okay," I said.

When I woke up Marluxia was curled in a crescent moon around my back, most of his body on my pillow, his hips about in line with my shoulders. We weren't touching, but close. I could almost feel the warmth of his body next to me, and the deep, mumbling sigh of each breath by my ear seemed amplified to ten times the volume in the early morning darkness.  
I dared not move, knowing that any sudden gestures - even in the dark - would have Marluxia awake and alert in a split second. For a while I was tense, not wanting to disturb the werewolf sleeping so peacefully on my pillow. I wanted to turn my head and try and make out his figure in the gloom, but couldn't.  
It was a while before he spoke, and when he did, he startled me.  
"Vexen?"  
"Yeah?"  
"Good. I was just checking that you were awake. You stopped breathing a few times."  
"Really? Sorry." I hadn't noticed that I'd been tensely holding my breath, listening to Marluxia softly inhale and exhale as he slept.  
"It's fine," He murmured, briefly brushing against me as he moved to a more comfortable position. I felt the muscles in my arm flinch, and he must have, too.  
"You're tense." He observed, fingertips dropping to my shoulder. "You're always tense around me. Why?"  
"I'm always tense, period," I replied stiffly. Out of the corner of my eye, I could just see his sharp nails - or were they claws? - resting just above my collarbone. A sharp dig into my shoulder and he could pierce my skin with ease.  
"And you never look at me." Marluxia continued, tone almost petulant.  
"What are you trying to insinuate?" I asked quietly, and he pulled gently - but firmly - on my shoulder to twist me around. I couldn't see his face for the darkness, but I could feel the close proximity of his to mine.  
"You never look at me," He repeated. "Am I that ugly?"  
"You're not ugly at all," I answered dutifully.  
"But I'm a _monster_."  
Simple fact. I couldn't disagree. But-  
"We all are."  
Marluxia sighed a little and I realised that he was as tense as I was; both of use pulled tight like threads and neither of us able to relax. This is how we stayed for two, maybe three, four minutes.  
"I should get up," I finally whispered. Marluxia drew his hand away.  
"Fine."  
"What's wrong with you this morning?" I asked as I climbed out of the duvet. "You're acting strangely."  
Marluxia rolled out also, almost falling gracelessly onto the floor but somehow changing that into landing elegantly on his feet and fingertips, before straightening out.  
"Never mind."  
"Right. I'm going to have a shower."  
I collected my towel, and left. A few minutes later, downstairs, I could hear the tinkling of the old guitar. It made me smile.

---

"Hey, Vex. You okay now?"  
I nodded in Demyx's direction as I came into the kitchen and made a quick breakfast.  
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just a little confused is all. Thanks."  
"This is about the Organisation, isn't it?"  
My gaze snapped up.  
"You know of them?"  
"Yeah, of course. They turned me." Demyx replied, his smile faltering a little but it quickly sprang back into his stony face.  
"Who are they?" I asked, returning to the menial preparation of food. I couldn't look at Demyx's carefree grin, not when he was talking about the destruction of his entire young life.  
"Well, you know some Marked turn naturally, right?" Demyx began. I nodded. "But some people the Organisation turn, for whatever reason. If they have problems, or they want then dead or whatever. Everybody just turns a blind eye to that kinda thing. But they say there's a lot of mutiny in the group. I'd guess that Xem-whatever and his partner are working from the inside to try and help the Marked, instead. We're all in this together, right?"  
I was amazed at how perceptive Demyx was. The moment he'd woken up in my bed, beaming innocently at our saturnine expressions, I'd labelled him as an adorable idiot. Perhaps I'd been unfair.  
"So do you think I can trust them?"  
Demyx shrugged.  
"I dunno. Maybe you should take a gun into work today, just in case. It won't kill a werewolf unless you shoot them in the brains, or something, but it'll help slow them down so you can escape."  
"...Right."  
Both of us knew that I'd never have the guts to kill another person - human or Marked - but I still pocketed Larxene's little pistol before I left for work. It leaned, uncomfortably, against my thigh, on the train into my office. It felt wrong, and it did nothing to ease my anxiety.  
The journey seemed long, people all around me going about their daily lives as I carried in my jacket a loaded gun. Even the lift up to my floor, then another three storeys to Xemnas' office, inched its way up over an eternity.  
I knocked on the door, slid it open, and slipped inside. There was Xemnas, human once again, Saïx behind him as always.  
"You've done it?"  
I nodded.  
"I used my own gun. Both of them are dead. I buried them in the back garden."  
Xemnas nodded approvingly, cruel eyes piercing mine. Now I knew what to look for, I could see the faint ring of contact lenses over his irises.  
"Good. Here, a reward for your efforts."  
He pulled a thick bundle of notes from the top drawer and slid them across the desk to me. I quickly flicked through the wad - there was more there than I earned in a month.  
"We will continue to supplement your income," Xemnas said, "As long as your co operation continues."  
"Thank you." I said quietly, standing and walking to the door. I kept my ears open for any noise, unable to trust the two werewolves.  
"And Vexen?"  
"Yes?"  
"It was for the best."  
"I know."  
I slipped downstairs where Xigbar was waiting to harass me, and continued my work as though nothing had ever happened. It was surreal.

----

"Go well?"  
Marluxia was chewing on a bone, apparently raw, when I returned home. He also appeared to be more interested in it than me.  
I ruffled his hair as I walked past, heading for the kettle, and he glared half-heartedly at me.  
"I don't really know what to think, but I'm still alive so that's something, right?"  
Marluxia set the bone down, back into the plastic packet he'd taken it from, licked his bloody fingers and approached me, leaning his elbows on the work surface. After a moment I noticed that he was giving me a carefully calculative look.  
"You still never look at me," He muttered. I apologised, and the conversation stalled for a brief moment before he spoke again. "So what did Xemnas say?"  
"He congratulated me on killing you and Demyx, and gave me a hefty sum of money." I replied, pulling the wad of notes from my pocket. Marluxia snatched it up, distrusting, but quickly established that it was nothing more than fifty-pound notes, and lots of them. Satisfied, he set it down again.  
"Just don't let Larxene know. She'd waste that in a heartbeat."  
I nodded; Marluxia didn't need to say that. I was already planning a list of things I could do with that money - buy a bed and furnishings for Demyx in the storeroom, patch up some of the bloodstains on the walls from Marluxia's arrival, feed the family for a month or Marluxia for a week...

---

I honestly should have known that it was only going to be a matter of time before I walked in on Marluxia naked in the bathroom again. Mid-June now, and a few days after the harrowing experience of another full moon: it had been hotter than ever before. Even Demyx, who was more or less made of stone, was beginning to really feel the heat and had taken to slinking about in the dappled shade of the trees in the garden, always strumming chords on the old guitar.  
Marluxia and I had both begun sleeping in nothing more than boxers; it was just too hot for pyjamas, even during the night. Strangely, it had never occurred to me until now that that might have been considered a little odd, since we shared a bed. Now, that is, that I found myself desperately not staring at Marluxia lounging in the bath.  
"S-sorry," I mumbled instantly, but all I needed to use the bathroom for was to grab my deodorant so against my better judgement I slipped in and began to rummage around the cupboards. I'd never had any troubled finding the spray before in my life, but it seemed like my terrible luck had decided that today would be a good time to find out what it was like.  
"You can look at me, you know," Marluxia said suddenly. "I won't hold it against you,"  
I found the refill, which would do for now, and stood, turning to face Marluxia. His comment hadn't made any sense. He was leaning against the edge of the bath, watching me with a frankly amused expression in his eyes, a quirky smile on his lips.  
"I'm sorry?"  
"It took me a while to realise that the reason you wouldn't look at me wasn't because of revulsion," Marluxia said quietly, stepping out of the bath, tail considerately wrapped around his waist.  
I blushed furiously as he stepped closer than close, the wet hair hanging in his eyes doing nothing to hide the intensity of his gaze.  
I nervously bit at my lip. And then _he_ bit at my lip.  
We stumbled backwards together, splashing into the cold bathwater, and before my mind caught up with me I was pressed against Marluxia's body, radiating heat despite the cool water, and our mouths were crashing together, our tongues...  
I'd never have said that I was sexual by nature, but suddenly the pent up lust inside me that I never knew existed was pouring out, and it seemed that Marluxia was experiencing the same thing. The way he _moved_...  
I didn't even realise that I was attempting to shed my clothes until Marluxia reached up to tug my open shirt away from my shoulders, and as his fingers brushed against my skin I tried - and failed - to bite back a moan. We broke apart momentarily, to breathe, before falling upon each other again like mad, starved dogs.  
It was amazing.  
It was - it was _better_ than amazing, it was indescribable, the heat and cold dizzying my nerves and numbing my brain, and Marluxia was responding to my touch in ways that could make me honestly believe that he was made for _me_.  
If asked before that moment whether true love existed, I'd have immediately said no. But now, I wasn't so sure. Marluxia felt so... _right_...  
Too wrapped up in each other, neither of us heard the front door go or realised that Larxene was back until she burst into the bathroom, laughing manically, with a video camera in tow.  
Something happened which involved screaming on everybody's behalf, and I'm not quite sure exactly _what_, but the next thing I knew, Marluxia was devouring the little appliance, Larxene was backed up against the wall and still laughing, and I was lying, speechless, in the bath. Half naked.  
"Oh God," Larxene gasped in between fits of giggles. "Oh God. I _knew_ you were gay, Vexen. You kinky bastard."  
I gallantly chose not to reply, or strangle my little sister to death as Marluxia lifted me by the armpits out of the bath, and carried me to the bedroom, but not before salvaging the memory card from the wrecked camera.  
"Hm."  
"Oh God," I said, blushing. "Destroy it,"  
"For the memories?" Marluxia replied, hopefully.  
"Only if Larxene never, ever finds it."  
"It's a deal."


	5. Rememberance

Marluxia lowered me to the bed, as gentle as anything, and climbed on after to pin me down with all four limbs. He gazed deeply into my eyes, as though willing me to silently consent to more. He was panting slightly, cheeks flushed.  
I took a moment to look at him, really _look_. Beneath the rugged scars, the tussled hair, he looked so young, tanned skin smooth, eyes large, lashes long, lips pink. And he was _beautiful_.  
Eventually, he chuckled.  
"When I said I wouldn't hold it against you, I didn't say that I wouldn't get bored,"  
He leaned down for another hungry kiss. I was all too happy to comply.

---

In the morning I found myself curled up in Marluxia's arms, held as though I were a soft toy that he needed to cuddle in order to sleep. He was warm, bare skin pressed against mine, each of us breathing steadily, not quite in sync. I didn't want to move.  
Eventually bodily functions and work called so I gently shook Marluxia awake-  
"Vexen."  
- it didn't take much. And I crawled out of the bed and into the shower. I half expected the werewolf to follow me, but I was alone until I reached the kitchen a few minutes later where everybody was watching me expectantly.  
Larxene must have told Demyx about Marluxia and I - she never could keep her mouth shut when a good piece of gossip presented itself to her - and he was all but bouncing up and down in his seat, trying to hold back a grin. Larxene herself was obviously also finding it difficult to keep her emotions in check - but at least she was trying not to burst out laughing.  
"You can stop staring," I huffed, boiling the kettle for a mug of coffee. Larxene stifled a giggle and returned to her magazine; Marluxia to his food - well, Larxene's leftovers. I could have sworn that she was beginning to lose weight again since Marluxia had begun eating most of her scraps, and more. I decided to mention that, just to please her.  
"Really?" She said, glancing up with a little blush on her face. "No way, you really think so?"  
"Yeah," I said, not really understanding the infatuation women had with their weight. But, whatever made them happy, I supposed.  
Demyx was still gawking and I glared at him.  
"What do you want?"  
"Are you really," Demyx began awkwardly, glancing meaningfully at Marluxia. "Did you really, you know..." He trailed off.  
"Before I say yes, what exactly did Larxene tell you?" I asked sceptically. Suddenly Larxene was trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. Demyx was blushing furiously.  
"That you were... you know! Doing _it_."  
"It?" I questioned coldly; I knew what Demyx was trying to imply because Larxene had clearly lied through her teeth to him, but it was funny seeing him splutter and blush trying not to say "sex". I may have been a horrible man. What was even more funny was Demyx's bashful little hand gestures which were perhaps more graphic than he'd intended.  
"You _know_."  
"We were just making out," Marluxia confirmed lightly, putting Demyx out of his misery. A little bit more than I'd expected. His face lit up like a light bulb.  
"Really?!"  
I shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant and mask the fact that my heart was beating nineteen to the dozen.  
"So what?"  
"You know, I had a boyfriend once," He said suddenly. "We were gonna get married and everything, me and him."  
I remembered reading, somewhere in the history books, that for a long time marriages were only legal between people of the opposite sex. In this day and age of artificial conception - and nearly a third of the world's population homosexual or bisexual - rules like that seemed kind of stupid.  
"What happened?" Larxene asked, as if Demyx's appearance alone did not make it obvious. The boy's expression fell.  
"Well, they made me a gargoyle."  
He didn't say anything else, and none of us felt like asking.

---

It was several weeks later before the status quo changed. After the surreal episodes with Xemnas and Saïx, things seemed to have returned to normal. Until, that is, I saw the photograph in Xigbar's wallet.  
He'd dropped it on the floor just minutes before the lunch break - which I was planning to work through - and halfway back from the coffee machine, I'd picked it up for him. Inside was a photograph of a man horribly, horribly familiar.  
Of course, he had nothing of the stony skin that I remembered, no alien horns or wings, but his eyes were just the same, and his smile... It was Demyx.  
"You done looking, dude?"  
"Oh. Yeah." I snapped the wallet closed and handed it back. "Who's the man in the photograph?"  
Xigbar chuckled hollowly, taking his turn at looking at the photo.  
"He was my boyfriend," He said, fondness unlike him creeping into his voice. "But he was in a car crash. Brain damaged so bad the doctors said he'd never wake up, and that was the optimistic diagnosis. His family decided to do the humane thing and let him rest in peace."  
I nodded sympathetically, and bit my lip. I couldn't tell Xigbar that his dead boyfriend was actually living in my house.  
"His name was Demyx," Xigbar continued, finishing up his own work and logging off his computer.  
"It's a pretty name," I replied.  
"Well, he was a pretty guy. Always a smile on his face, and-"  
"A guitar in his hands," I finished before I could stop myself. Xigbar gave me an incredulous look.  
"How did you know?"  
"H-He looks like a musical type," I quickly covered, glancing away. Xigbar didn't seem quite convinced, but he let it slide.  
"He was really good with the guitar. Always wanted to start a band. He wanted to be rich and famous, you know? But it wasn't just that. He wanted to change the world. He always used to say that; "Hey, Xiggy, when I'm popular I'm gonna tell everybody never to kill again. And they'll listen to me, Xigbar. I'll make them listen. 'Cus when I say it it'll be catchy! Ne-aawh!". But..."  
Xigbar trailed off, leaning back in his chair, staring at the photograph in his wallet. It was dog-eared, a little crumpled at the edge and fading.  
"But...?" I prompted quietly. Xigbar just shook his head, sighing, his expression devoid of his signature smile.  
"You know when I was going hunting, a month or so ago?"  
"How could I forget," I intoned dully.  
"And you kicked up such a fuss." Xigbar muttered sourly. "Let me tell you a story."  
He leaned over and wheeled a chair next to him, patting the seat in a motion for me to sit. I complied.  
"Let me tell you about the accident. Me and Demyx were in a car, one of our friends driving. He was in the front, I was in the back. We were doing about sixty down the motorway and suddenly some werewolf runs out in front of the car. Kairi - the driver - swerved to miss it, and hit another car. Demyx went through the windscreen. Now if it weren't for that _fucking_ werewolf, he would still be alive today."  
He paused to let that sink in. But I was horrified; it wasn't the werewolf's fault, was it? It couldn't have meant to kill Demyx - or at least what Xigbar thought of as killing Demyx - could it?  
"That's why I go hunting," Xigbar continued. I snapped back to the present. "Because this world ain't safe. The Marked are killers. Think how many innocent people they're killing, like Demyx. He wanted to change the world, and I'm not going to let that wish go unheard. I'm going to do it for him. I'll make the world a better place if it kills me."

---

"Demyx?"  
The gargoyle was tinkling on the guitar again as I arrived home after work and I came to join him on the sofa.  
"Yuh-huh?"  
"If you don't mind," I asked quietly, "Could to tell me about... about how you became a gargoyle?"  
Demyx set down the guitar, looking at me with concerned eyes.  
"Did something happen at work?"  
"I'll talk to you about it later."  
He frowned, confused. But then, with an air of innocence, he nodded.  
"Okay. Sure. Well, there was me and Xiggy and Kairi in the car, going home from a concert. It was kinda foggy, the weather wasn't so good, so Kai couldn't really see where she was going past a few metres. And then suddenly somebody was in front of the car! She didn't have time to break, so she swerved, but she hit another car. I went through the windscreen. Kah-pow! Pretty spectacular."  
As he spoke Demyx waved his arms around to give me a better picture of the scene - not that I wanted one. Then he looked at me, grinning a bit.  
"Wanna hear the rest?"  
"Go on."  
"Well, so I think Xiggy got hit pretty bad too, front seat took out his eye, but he got out and was trying to check I was okay. Couldn't see a thing. Cars were piling up. And then the guy we nearly hit came over - it was a werewolf. He looked terrible - I think he'd been attacked. But anyway, he knew first aid and was trying to help me. I blacked out after that."  
I nodded thoughtfully. So the werewolf had been guilty for causing the accident and had even tried to help; how could Xigbar be so cruel?  
"And," Demyx continued, "I don't really know the details but I think I was in a coma for a few months. But I was sorta in-and-out of consciousness. Stupidly messed up in the head. I had pretty bad injuries,"  
He motioned to the back of his head where, amongst the fluffy hair, I could make out a blotchy scar.  
"So they couldn't really kill me, so they made me a gargoyle. At least then I had a chance to recover? But I think all my friends and family think I'm dead. That must suck pretty bad..."  
I nodded, still toying with my lip between my teeth. Demyx gave me an expectant look and when I didn't answer, asked;  
"So what happened at work?"  
Suddenly I didn't know what to say. What could I tell him - that it was undoubtedly Xigbar who had tried to kill him in the hunt that had led him to our household? That everything was so damn _wrong_?  
"One of the guys at work knew you," I finally confessed. Demyx's eyes lit up.  
"Oh my god! Who?"  
"Xigbar."  
Demyx, although always somewhat statuesque, was suddenly frozen, his mouth open in a dumbfounded smile. I frowned worriedly at him, opening my mouth to continue. He interrupted me.  
"Oh my god!" He said again, "_Really_? Can I meet him? Did he tell you that we were, you know, going out? We were gonna get married and everything, he always said he was gonna propose when I least expected it, do you think you could get him to come meet me? I've always wanted to see him again..."  
I shook my head.  
"It's not that simple. He... he hates the Marked. He thinks that it's all their fault that you supposedly died."  
"I don't care!" Demyx pleaded, eyes impossibly wide. "It's _me_, he'll always listen to me, Vexen!"  
"Demyx." I said sternly. "He was the one that tried to kill you."  
Suddenly the tick of the clock hanging on the wall was the only sound. Footsteps in other rooms of the house echoed solemnly, emptily. Time slowed, stopped.  
Larxene burst in, and before she even had a chance to speak, I gave her the most piercing glare of my life.  
"Just shut the fuck up."  
Amazingly, she left without even a single word, but she'd broken the spell.  
"He didn't know it was me," Demyx murmured quietly. "I have to meet him. I have to tell him what he's doing is wrong. What if he tries to hurt anybody else?! I thought he was better than that!"  
Tears were speckling at the corners of his eyes, and I brushed them away.  
"He was only doing what he thought was right," I assured the poor boy. "He blamed your death on the werewolf,"  
"But the werewolf tried to save my life!"  
"He wanted to change the world for you. Make it a better place."  
"He's doing it wrong," Demyx sobbed, diving forwards to wrap his arms around me. "He's doing it all wrong. I _have_ to meet him. I have to set things right..."  
"I'm not sure if I can-"  
"_Please_."

---

In the end, I made no promises - but I didn't say no, either. I wanted to talk to Xigbar first before getting Demyx's hopes up - like I should have done in the first place. I almost knew, although I didn't want to admit it, that if I didn't organise a meeting between Demyx and Xigbar, Demyx would do it himself - which could prove disastrous and potentially fatal if Xigbar didn't recognise Demyx in time.  
In the end, I ended up talking to Marluxia about it. We'd grown quite close over the summer - so close, in fact, that even now that the weather was beginning to cool again we still slept all but naked - and so he was always the first person I went to when things were bothering me. Recently, this was a lot.  
We'd been charged by the Almighty Larxene with the washing - with four people in the house it quickly built up - on this particular cool autumn Saturday evening. So I'd decided to bring up the whole Demyx-Xigbar issue up with him as we were carefully sorting out the clothes to cause maximum damage to Larxene's simultaneously with minimum damage to everybody else's. It was proving to be quite a challenge.  
"If Xigbar is as much of a bastard as I've always known him to be," Marluxia said lowly once I was done explaining, "He will blow Demyx's brains out before he's had a chance to utter one syllable."  
"But he thinks what he's doing is right," I persisted. "If I told him it was Demyx then maybe-"  
"Xigbar attacked him before," Marluxia interrupted. "Do you really think that he didn't recognise his own former boyfriend?"  
"He wouldn't have been expecting it," I defended. "And it must have been dark, and if he just fired at the movement then maybe he'd never even have seen Demyx's face."  
"Are you disagreeing with me on principle, or just blindly naive?" Marluxia growled. "Are you _stupid_?! There is no good to be found in the hearts of people like him. You can't make everything right just by desperately willing it so!"  
"At least I'm _trying_!" I yelled back.  
"What is that supposed to mean?"  
"It means you're so wrapped up in letting everyone know just how bad being a werewolf is that you're not even doing anything about it." I snapped. The resulting silence was horrible. Marluxia stared at me, dumbfounded, for several minutes.  
"I... I thought you _loved_ me," He finally whimpered, turned tail and ran.  
"That was less than smart," Somebody said quietly, behind me. I turned around, still a little shell shocked.  
"Demyx."  
"I'm sorry," The musician said, stepping in from the garden and stamping his feet free of dirt on the welcome mat laid down on the floor. "If this whole thing about me and Xiggy hadn't come up-"  
"It's not your fault," I muttered, lobbing another shirt onto an ever increasing pile.  
"He is trying, you know," Demyx said reproachfully, finding a space on the floor and resting the guitar on his lap. He strummed a few melancholy notes. "_Poor, poor Vexen, got into a fight; doesn't know how he can make things right_..."  
I laughed a little at his silly ad hoc rhyme.  
"Very good."  
"No, seriously. I got vibes now - _Poor, poor Vexen, what can he do? Now Marly hates him and... and I need the loo._ Hm. Perhaps not one of my better songs."  
"I like it." I said, trying not to giggle. For a few moments we laughed together until the joke wore off and we both ended up sitting in silence again.  
"I'm sorry." Demyx repeated. "I'm sorry, now Marly really is mad at you..."  
"He'll get over it," I muttered, although I wasn't entirely sure myself.  
"He'll probably go off with Larxene," Demyx said cheerfully.  
"What." I said. Demyx didn't reply, frowning a little. "_What_."  
"Well, how do you think he amuses himself during the day when you're at work?"  
"You did not just say that." I muttered, expression dark as I stood up. "You did not just tell me that Marluxia's been going around with Larxene. _Please_."  
"Well, they are quite close," Demyx said carefully, nervously stroking the smooth, curved wood of the guitar. "What's so bad about that? I know you don't like Larxene, but..."  
"He's supposed to be _mine_!" I screamed, preparing to storm off in a rage of self-righteous fury. I was stopped by a sudden iron hold on my forearm. Demyx's eyes were dark.  
"I didn't mean it like that," He said quietly. "Vexen, the only time they ever had sex was ages ago, before Marly even realised that he liked you. C'mon. You need to relax a little. Get some sleep."  
When I said nothing - I realised that my fists were clenched and I was shaking slightly, but I ignored it - Demyx continued.  
"Seriously, Vexen. I know things aren't easy for you right now but if you keep running madly about you'll just end up crashing into walls and that's not going to help anybody. Least of all yourself. Just go to bed and get some rest. I'll finish up the laundry."  
"I'm fine." I muttered sourly, shaking my arm free. "I know what I'm doing."  
"That's not what it looks like to me," Demyx said, casting a meaningful glance at the doorway where Marluxia had taken his leave not five minutes ago. "_Look_. Marluxia's unpredictable and snappy at the best of times - take it from me, I know. He hates me. And that's why he needs _you_ because he doesn't know what to feel and he needs reassurance. I don't know much of how he became Unwanted but it really affected him. More than me, I mean."  
My shoulders sagged.  
"What am I supposed to do? I'm as in the dark as he is."  
"Just get some sleep," Demyx said kindly. "_Hush now, my baby, be still now - don't cry; sleep as you're rocked by the stream. Sleep and remember my last lullaby - and I'll be with you, when you dream..._"  
"You write that?" I asked.  
"Nah, it was from some old, 2D film I saw as a kid. My dad used to love all the old technology - blu ray, stuff like that. He had a player and everything. Prince of Egypt, the film was called."  
"That's really beautiful." I murmured.  
"Yeah, I think that the oldest songs are the best," Demyx grinned. "Come on, off to bed with you." He continued, ushering me out of the kitchen and up the stairs.  
"I don't understand," I said eventually as Demyx picked out a clean pair of pyjamas for me. "I don't get how you can be so happy and have everything so sorted when something so terrible happened to you."  
Demyx turned away as I changed.  
"Well, the thing is, I'm lucky. To be alive - my human body wasn't strong enough to cope with the injuries I got from the crash. I think they just changed me to save on the cost of running the life support stuff - they do that a lot - but they saved my life. I'm lucky to be alive, and I'm lucky to have a body that works, even if it does mean that I spend a lot of time running. My friends and family would have lost me anyway. But Marluxia - I'm only guessing but I think he just lost everything suddenly when he became a werewolf. He was sixteen, right? His whole future laid out in front of him - then _bam_. He lost it all, just like that. It can make people very bitter."  
"I suppose so," I said quietly. "He changed naturally, didn't he?"  
Demyx nodded.  
"I think so. But he was marked very soon after, I think. Unwanted who aren't immediately marked tend to try and hide their appearances. But Marly still has his ears and tail, so..."  
"You mean they'd cut them off?" I asked, horrified, as I climbed into bed. It smelt of Marluxia.  
"Well, yeah." Demyx said. "Tails like that are too just floofy to stick down your trousers, or whatever. But it's worse for gargoyles because we have all kinds of bits and pieces stuck on that shouldn't be there."  
"I suppose." I said quietly. For a while, we were both silent. And then - "I feel so useless," I admitted.  
Demyx laughed sadly.  
"Yeah, I think we all do. But here's to hoping?"  
"Here's to hoping," I agreed dully. Right now, hoping was all any of us had.


	6. Regret

It was dark when I saw Marluxia again. He was at the door, watching the sky through the cut glass of the porch with worried eyes.  
"Where do you think you're going?"  
He turned to face me, ears drooping.  
"I'm leaving."  
I barked a laugh, tense.  
"Don't be stupid. You wouldn't last an hour out there."  
"I managed to survive eight years without your help, thank you very much," Marluxia snapped back. "I hardly think I'm going to be shot dead the moment I step outside the door,"  
"I wouldn't bet on it," I huffed.  
Marluxia sighed tersely, glancing outside again. The sky was clear, the moon fat and bloated.  
"Thanks, Vexen. Good to know you have faith in me and care about me."  
"Well, you hardly care about me if you're just going to up and leave,"  
"You really think that?" He whispered, his voice a little strained. "You really think that I just - just don't care at all?"  
I stormed over to him, grabbing his arm to force him to look me in the eye.  
"What's wrong with you?" I demanded lowly. He laughed, lips twisting into what might have been a grin, but the laugh was a sob and the smile was a grimace.  
"What's wrong with me?" He repeated, voice rising. "Is that _all_ you can come up with? What's - _wrong_? I'm a fucking _werewolf_, Vexen! You can't get much more "wrong" than that!"  
His eyes were wide, his pupils narrow slits that sliced them cleanly in half. He was shaking, fists clenched with anger. He seemed to be having trouble restraining himself.  
"I'm leaving."  
"Don't you dare-"  
I was cut off by a snarl. It wasn't angry, I suddenly realised far to late. This was insane.  
Marluxia screamed, launching himself at me like a starved, mad dog and I felt the hot sting of pain as a set of razor-sharp claws sliced across my cheek. Marluxia wasn't there any more. The thing pinning me down to the floor, all fur and fangs and bulging, inhuman muscles, was not Marluxia.  
The light of the full moon lay patchily on the floor, and in it the monster bristled with power. It rose up on its hind legs, a howl escaping from its mouth that sent a shiver of fear coursing through my spine.  
Then it looked at me, jaw set in a toothy grin, eyes blank and bloodshot.  
I realised I hadn't been breathing, and screamed, gasping for air. It wasn't moving yet, and I forced myself to stay still in case and sudden movements should cause it to attack again.  
There was a commotion upstairs and Demyx and Larxene, shaken from their sleep, appeared on the landing.  
"Fuck," Demyx said quietly. "Vexen, you have to get upstairs. _Now_."  
"I can't," I replied carefully, not taking my eyes from the werewolf. It was blocking the way to the stairwell. Maybe if I could inch my way around the wall, I could hide in the sitting room...  
The monster was inspecting me closely, and as slowly as I could I stood. It let out a little questioning groan at the movement, but still made no move itself. I felt my fingers brush against the door handle, and carefully clicked it open. Just a few.. more... steps...  
There was another howl like the splintering of bones, and it set itself flying at me, knocking me through the door. Pain seared through my chest, clouded my vision, coursed adrenaline through my body. There was blood. A lot of blood.  
I scrabbled to my feet, and threw the door closed, panting heavily. I realised that tears were pouring down my cheeks, my whole body shaking. I was terrified.  
There was a crash and the bolts on the door strained as the werewolf tried to break through. Another, and another. It was too stupid to open the door, but that didn't mean it couldn't break through out of sheer brute force.  
I pushed the sofa against the door, piled it high with chairs. I found a heavy paperweight and kept it in my hand. If it got through, there was always the window to smash through.  
At the other end of the room, eyes hardly able to tear themselves from the door, reverberating with each crash from the other side, I carefully peeled my shirt away from my chest to inspect the damage. Four thin lines were gouged into my torso - they weren't deeper than my skin, but they were bleeding profusely. I made a makeshift bandage with the remains of my shirt, and curled up in the corner of the room, crying and waiting. Either the morning was going to come, or Marluxia - not Marluxia. The monster that had taken over his body - would break through and kill me.  
There was a muffled gunshot, a howl, and panicked screams from upstairs, then silence. Somehow it was even worse. Was the monster...?  
I tiptoed over to the door, listening out for any sounds of life. At first - nothing. But eventually I managed to make out laboured, uneven breathing that almost bordered on hysterical.  
I pressed my back to the battered door.  
"Marluxia?"  
It howled again, but it sounded more like a wail of pain than fury. Then there was a crash that shook the house. But it wasn't trying to break through to get to me.  
It was a long night.

---

Dawn came, eventually. I was half-delirious with exhaustion and blood loss, and could barely stand as I pushed the furniture away for Larxene to come in and carry me upstairs.  
Marluxia was lying unconscious on the hall floor, humanoid again and covered with blood.  
"Is he dead?" I asked.  
"He'll be fine," Larxene whispered.  
The post at the bottom of the stairs was snapped clean in half, there were dents and gouges in the walls, and blood was everywhere. The hall table had been smashed to pieces. Three windows were broken. The door had been clawed half apart. It was worse than horrific; it was a living nightmare and there Marluxia lay, dwarfed by the damage he had caused, and so pale that he could have been claimed by death itself.  
"What's the time?" I asked as Larxene filled up the bath and plonked me in, scrubbing ever-so-gently at my wounded cheek and chest.  
"It's about four in the morning."  
"I don't suppose that there's any chance of me going to work today?"  
"Vexen, it's Sunday."  
"Oh."  
Larxene placed a cool hand against my forehead.  
"You've got a fever," She said. "No wonder you were hysterical last night."  
"I was hysterical because I was about to get destroyed by a rabid werewolf," I muttered sardonically.  
"You idiot," Larxene replied quietly. "You are such a moron it's a wonder you're still alive, you know that? Maybe you ought to learn the moon cycles if you want to be Marluxia's boyfriend."  
I glared weakly at her, but eventually I had to let my eyes slide closed.  
Larxene sighed.  
"You really scared me last night, you know that. We didn't know if you were going to make it to the morning."  
When I didn't reply, she continued. "I mean it, Vexen. I know you're a jerk and all, and about the stuffiest guy I have ever had the displeasure of being forced to grow up with, and we hate each other, but... I kind of love you too, you know?"  
"Did you take something bad last night?" I asked carefully. This was not something Larxene had ever said before; nor was it something she would ever say. She didn't do "love", unless it was for shoes or money or sex.  
She laughed at me.  
"No, seriously. When you think somebody's gonna die you suddenly come clear about them, and you. And I... I should have been more grateful to you than I am. I mean, sure, you're fussy, but without you I probably would be in a ditch right now."  
I opened one eye to look at her, and, damn it, she looked sincere.  
"I guess," I said thoughtfully, "I love you too. In a kind of "I want to rip you to shreds and extract torturous and petty revenge on you for ninety five percent of the time" way."  
Larxene giggled.  
"Yeah. The feeling's mutual."  
"That's reassuring to hear."  
"Demyx thinks you need to go to hospital to get those wounds checked out," Larxene said, brushing a finger across the edge of one cut on my cheek. "But I don't think they're as bad as we first thought, so I think you'll be fine."  
I nodded. Larxene knew I hated hospitals - there wasn't really any rational reason behind it; I just disliked them. Which was odd, because when I was little I always wanted to be a medical doctor.  
Just then, Demyx came in, expression sombre.  
"Marluxia is really, really bad," He whispered, and then burst into tears. Larxene, full of surprises today, was quick to comfort him until he could speak again. "I don't know why he was doing all those things..."  
"What happened?" I asked.  
Demyx shook his head.  
"I don't know. He wasn't acting like werewolves normally do at the full moon. They're always a bit mad but they don't usually try to-" And another sob bubbled up his throat and he couldn't say any more. I looked to Larxene for help.  
"He was trying to hurt himself. After you got into the sitting room he started throwing himself at the walls. We don't know why."  
"...Their most powerful emotions..." Demyx was burbling miserably into Larxene's chest. "But _why_?"  
"Is he going to live?" I asked, my throat dry. Larxene nodded, but she didn't look convinced.  
I felt my chest tighten.  
"Can I talk to him?"  
"I don't think that's a good idea. He's a bit... unpredictable... right now."  
"So he's awake." I extrapolated. Demyx and Larxene glanced doubtfully at each other.  
"Well, not any more." Demyx finally admitted reproachfully.  
"Would you please tell me what's going on?"  
"I had to knock him out." Demyx whispered, threatening to cry again as he sat down on the stool next to the bath. "I didn't want to, I said it was only going to make it worse, but..."  
"He was trying to claw himself apart." Larxene finished bluntly.  
"Why?!"  
Demyx sighed mournfully.  
"Marluxia told me that after werewolves first transform in the full moon they have a few minutes of total awareness before they blank out and the monster... thing... takes over. But they don't have any control over what they do. So he knows he attacked you. But he doesn't know how bad it is. None of us really did."  
"I need to talk to him," I replied immediately. "I need to tell him that I'm okay."  
Moments later there was a crash from the hallway and I rushed outside, even though my head was spinning. Marluxia was lying in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs.  
I ran down, two, three steps at a time, and fell to the floor next to him.  
"Don't come near me," He hissed, unable to meet my eyes. "Oh God, Vexen, I thought I'd killed you,"  
"I'm fine," I assured him. "Just a little scratched and bruised, is all."  
Marluxia reached up to press shaking fingers to my chest, and each cut in line stung.  
"That's going to scar."  
"I'm fine," I said again. Marluxia did not seem placated at all by this, and let out a long, low whimper.  
"I'm a monster..."  
"That wasn't you."  
"I nearly _killed_ you!" He screamed, pressing his forehead to the damp skin of my stomach. At the same time he reached up to grab a crushing hold on the wet fabric of my trousers. "What kind of a sick, twisted man almost _kills_ his _boyfriend_?"  
I tangled my fingers in Marluxia's hair, gently rubbing at his head.  
"It wasn't your fault."  
"I tried to _kill_ you," Marluxia moaned again.  
I leaned down to kiss the top of his head.  
"But I'm fine now."  
"What if I do it again?"  
"We'll be more careful next time."  
It took a long time, but eventually Marluxia was calm enough to be led back upstairs. I bandaged myself, and we went to bed, Marluxia with his head on my belly as though I were a pillow, legs entangled with mine in a position that ought to have been - but inexplicably wasn't - uncomfortable.  
Neither of us woke till morning.


	7. Relapse

"Hey, Vexen. You look like hell."  
"Thank you, Captain Obvious."  
Xigbar laughed amiably at me as I took my seat, leaning against the back of the chair.  
"Forget it was a full moon?"  
"You could say that," I replied sardonically, not really wanting to remember Saturday night and everything that had happened during it.  
Xigbar grinned widely, sitting on my desk as though it wasn't covered with paperwork.  
"If it took your eye out, we could have matched," He laughed. "Got any other souvenirs?"  
I silently clawed a line across my chest, and he nodded sagely.  
"Lucky bastard. Coulda killed you, that."  
"I know," I said quietly, not really thinking. "I think we're both glad that it didn't,"  
"Yeah, 'cus you're such a-" Xigbar began, but then he stopped, realising that by "both" I didn't mean him and me. I knew this because I'd just realised the exact same thing. "What do you mean, both of us? You knew the werewolf, or something?  
"'Knew'," I laughed sarcastically. "Knew? He lives with me."  
There was a horrible, painful pause in which I seriously thought that Xigbar was going to strangle me on the spot. But then I realised that he was frozen, face in a locked half-smile, as though he didn't believe that I'd even spoken those words.  
"I'm looking after a werewolf and a gargoyle," I continued, as though I was just mentioning the weather and trying to sound nonchalant about it. When Xigbar didn't outwardly react I continued, biting my lip. He needed to know this, anyway. He needed to know the truth about Demyx and the Unwanted. "The werewolf's name is Marluxia. The gargoyle is called-" The final word caught at my throat- "Is called Demyx."  
Very gently, and too terrifyingly unpredictably, Xigbar eased himself from the desk, walking over until he was a little way from me down the office.  
"That's taking it too far, you fucker."  
"It's true," I insisted. "As soon as I saw the photograph in your wallet I saw that it was the same person. Demyx didn't die. He was turned."  
"I saw him go through the fucking windscreen of the car," Xigbar replied lowly. "He's dead. I don't need you fucking around pretending like it's any different."  
"I'm not pretending," I said, standing up and walking over to the frozen man. He was scowling. "I'm not pretending! He wants to meet you again."  
"I'll blow that fucking imposter's brains out."  
"He's just the same as he always was," I said carefully. I had no doubt that Xigbar had a gun on his person and even if he didn't kill me he could very well come close. "He says that they turned him because he couldn't survive as a human. His injuries from the crash were too bad."  
"You're bullshitting," Xigbar muttered. "You are fucking bullshitting about my _dead boyfriend_. Seriously, I knew you weren't a nice guy but that is _low_."  
"Do you think I would be so disrespectful as to _lie_?" I demanded instantly, jabbing Xigbar's chest. "Do you think I'd make up a story as sick as that for a _laugh_? I may be many things, but a liar isn't one of them."  
"Yeah, that's what I used to think," Xigbar chuckled grimly. "Just fuck off, won't you?"  
"I would, but if Demyx doesn't sort things out with you he may well go insane," I replied quietly, returning to my seat. To my surprise, Xigbar didn't storm away, he simply turned on his heel to face me. His expression was unreadable.  
"Come to my house tonight and I'll show you," I promised. "The Marked aren't monsters, Xigbar. They're people, just like you and me. What they don't need is to be shot down every time they even try to pretend that their lives are normal; what they need is help. _Our_ help."  
Xigbar silently drew up a chair to sit next to me, staring blankly at my flickering screen.  
"Tell me about him." He said.

---

I arrived home in good time to catch Demyx and Marluxia singing in the kitchen. I was mildly surprised; Marluxia could actually hold a tune. Coupled with his gorgeous, soft deep voice and Demyx's cheerful tinkling on the guitar, it sounded nice.  
When I stepped in, clapping, he immediately coloured and turned away.  
"Oh, stop it."  
Demyx was more shameless, bounding up to me and cheerfully prodding me.  
"We're starting a band, aren't we, Marly?"  
"Don't call me that,"  
"Yeah, we're gonna make a band," Demyx continued, unfazed by Marluxia's reluctance. "An Unwanted band. We're gonna make people listen because our songs are gonna be catchy! Nye-haw!"  
"Good luck with that."  
I ruffled his hair, laughing, and he giggled too. For a moment we pretended that everything was okay.  
"I talked to Xigbar today."  
Silence. Marluxia was staring as if you say "Are you _stupid_?" Demyx's expression held mad hope.  
I sat down, carefully.  
"He wants to meet you, Demyx. I said that he could come around tomorrow."  
Suddenly a good five foot five of solid stone bowled into me, nearly knocking me from my chair. It wasn't that Demyx was particularly heavy, he was just hard at the same time as being soft. I couldn't describe the texture of his skin except in that when it stopped, he was a statue, and when he moved it flowed just like normal skin.  
"Oh my god," Demyx was squealing. "Oh my god. Oh my god. Thank you so much. I can't believe I'm actually gonna get to see him again and all after so long-" And he dissolved into incomprehensible whittering.  
Marluxia rolled his eyes, and raided the fridge again.

---

The next day, Xigbar wasn't in.  
Rumours flew like flies around the office; he was ill, he was dead, he'd moved to New Mexico, he'd got married to a sexy truck driver in Inverness, he was hitchiking to find his soul, he couldn't be asked and had spent the day in bed.  
I was horrified; Xigbar had promised to see Demyx tonight and I couldn't face letting the poor boy down. I found his home number, called. The phone at the other end just kept on ringing. He didn't even pick up his mobile, and he _always_ picked up his mobile.  
Xigbar had disappeared.  
Had he wimped out of visiting Demyx? Didn't he know that it would break the gargoyle's heart?  
About halfway through the morning, one of Xigbar's friends - a man even taller than me who turned facial hair into an art - walked in with a somber expression on his face, and held up a formal looking letter. We all knew what it was.  
"Werewolf attack." He said simply. The office was utterly silent.  
I looked meaningfully up at him, as though I wanted to know more details. He was walking over anyway.  
"Xaldin-"  
"Xigbar told me to talk to you." He said, leaning on the desk. "He said he knew they were coming for him and he had some unfinished business with you. Can I help?"  
I shook my head, unable to look Xaldin in the eye. So Xigbar was... dead. After all that.  
"It wasn't really that great an importance to anybody but him and a friend of mine."  
"He told me that Demyx wasn't dead, and you were looking after him."  
"That's true,"I replied evenly.  
"Might I meet him?"  
"He'll break to know that Xigbar's dead," I blurted out. There was a sob from one of the female workers, and she had to be led away. "I'm sorry..."  
Xaldin shook his head in apologetic sympathy.  
"Can you tell him?"  
"I don't think so." I replied helplessly. "Look, Xaldin, there's something you need to know about Demyx-"  
"Xigbar already told me," Xaldin said gently, resting a large, tanned hand on my shoulder. Then he sighed a little, looking away, his expression saddened "He was my best friend, Vexen, you know that. We used to hunt the Marked together. Now I feel like a murderer."  
"I won't hold it against you," I murmured. _Although Marluxia might..._  
He chuckled hollowly.  
"And you escape an assault from a transformed werewolf with just a few scratches. You lucky bastard."  
"That's what Xigbar said."  
Xaldin sighed again.  
"Goddamn it. Stupid, bastard werewolf."  
"It was probably scared," I reasoned gently.  
"Yeah. Surprised that Xigbar didn't blow its brains out."  
"Well, would he, if he knew that all Marked used to be normal people?"  
"But he's not so bad at the whole "running the fuck away" thing either. At least, I thought so."  
There was silence for a while as we contemplated this. I noticed out of the corner of my eye Xaldin discretely wipe at his eyes with one sleeve. I didn't call him up on it; I felt like crying too.  
"At least he knew the truth," I finally said. Xaldin nodded, but we both knew that if anything it just made it worse.  
"What confuses me," Xaldin said after another long silence, "Is _why_. Xigbar said that he knew "they" were coming, but why would the Unwanted want to kill him once he knew the truth about them? And if they didn't know, why not do it before if it was going to be so goddamn easy?"  
I didn't know either.

---

After work I numbly paid for Xaldin's train ticket to my station, then walked him home. I wasn't even going to be the one to break the news to Demyx and yet I felt like I was in more of a state than Xaldin who walked stoically next to me. Marluxia was waiting in the doorway, but momentarily shrank back when he saw Xaldin-  
"It's okay. He knows."  
"Demyx is in the garden. Where's Xigbar?"  
Before I could reply, Demyx, having presumably heard the door go, bounded in with an innocent grin on his face. Upon seeing Xaldin, it fell considerably.  
"Where's Xigbar?"  
Xaldin simply bowed his head, nodding a little to me, and led Demyx into the sitting room, closing the door with its impressive collection of gouges courtesy of Marluxia behind him.  
"Where's Xigbar?" Marluxia said again, voice low. His eyes were trained, cold, on the door and what lay behind. "What happened?"  
"He was attacked last night," I whispered. "By a werewolf. He didn't survive."  
"Bullshit." Marluxia immediately snapped.  
"Xaldin has a doctor's certificate. This isn't a joke, Marluxia."  
Marluxia rolled his eyes.  
"What, a doctor's certificate like the one they gave to Xigbar when _Demyx_ supposedly died?"  
I dragged him out into the kitchen.  
"You and your conspiracy theories! It's perfectly probable that he was attacked by a werewolf; after all, he did used to hunt them,"  
Marluxia gave me a disbelieving look, grabbing an apple from the basket. I knocked it out of his hands.  
"Now is not the time to be eating!"  
"In case you haven't noticed," Marluxia hissed as he salvaged the fruit from the floor and rubbed it off, "I'm always eating."  
"Maybe you ought to show a little more respect to both Demyx and Xigbar."  
"Demyx, who is naively going to believe the lies he's told and Xigbar who isn't even dead? Xigbar who nearly _killed_ his _boyfriend_?"  
"Don't you dare forget that he wasn't the only one to come so close," I growled, jabbing Marluxia's chest. I immediately regretted the blow; it was low, even for me. Anger and horror flared in Marluxia's eyes and he took a stumbling step backwards. The apple dropped, half eaten and forgotten, to the floor.  
"You _fucking bastard_. Do you think I _wanted_ to do that? Do you think I was _enjoying_ the fact that I was trying to rip you to pieces?!"  
"Just shut the fuck up."  
"I hate you."  
"I hate you more! Always so angst-ridden like some petulant teenager, _always_ going on about how bad it is for _you_, never even considering that maybe other people have feelings! You think that every human in the world is out to get you, you can't God _damned_ accept that maybe there are werewolves that live up to their gruesome reputation! Why does everything to you always have to be either _fucking_ black or white?!"  
"Vexen." Marluxia said quietly, his voice strained. "First of all, I was _sixteen_ when I turned. In human terms _I still am a teenager_. Secondly, I'd like _you_ to spend just one day in my shoes - and I know I'm barefoot, it's a metaphor so don't call me up on that because I know you would - and see how you like it. Thirdly, no werewolf would be _stupid_ enough to attack a known hunter who no doubt had a gun."  
I sighed.  
"Everybody else managed to grow up just fine. Why don't you take a page out of Demyx's book?"  
"Don't." Marluxia replied, murder in his voice. "Don't start on me. Don't try to compare me to Demyx. Just because he has chosen to cover up his pain and take the fucking shit that we're put through without even standing up for himself doesn't mean that I will."  
"You are such a moron." I decided.  
"Is that supposed to be some kind of comeback?" Marluxia asked incredulously. "Is your argument so pathetic that all you can come up with is just outright insulting me?"  
At some point I realised that Larxene had walked in, but we were both ignoring her, even when she spoke.  
"Guys?"  
"I'm just not even going to bother to reply to your idiotic "woe is me" rants; it's a waste of my breath!"  
"Guys."  
"You know what else is a waste of breath? Letting you fucking live! I could rip you apart, _right now_!"  
"_Guys_!"  
Larxene stormed in between us, pushing us firmly away from each other (I hadn't even registered that our noses were just inches apart).  
"Guys. Seriously. Shut the fuck up, both of you. Demyx is crying his heart out in the next room trying to make out like things are going to be okay, the very least you could do is play happy families until he's out of earshot,"  
I glared at Marluxia.  
"He started it."  
Larxene turned her full outrage towards me, using both hands to push me backwards against the wall. I had never seen her so inflamed with anger.  
"You! You're twenty-nine, for God's sake, you of all people ought to have known better and stopped this argument before it even began!"  
"Great," I huffed. "So now you're siding with Marluxia?"  
"Marluxia is a fuckwit moron too, and I'm going to claws his eyes out about it later. God damn both of you, _I'm_ supposed to the bitch of this house. And you're supposed to be playing at mum and dad."  
She scrabbled inside her pocket for something as Marluxia and I exchanged horrified glances at the prospect of one of us to be degraded to "mum" status, and pressed a little packet into my hand. Before either of us could speak, she was gone.  
I looked at her thoughtful gift.  
"What the hell are we supposed to use a condom for?"  
"She's right," Marluxia huffed grudgingly, approaching me to grab my hand and pull the condom away from me, inspecting it closely. "We shouldn't be fighting. Not now."  
He sighed a little, and looked meaningfully at me. "If you apologise, I will too."  
"Fine," I muttered. "I'm sorry."  
"I'm sorry too. Come on, let's put this to good use."  
"What, now?!"  
Marluxia paused, face pensive. Then he pocketed the condom.  
"Okay, maybe later. This is for me, though."  
"What? Don't be stupid. I'm older."  
"I'm stronger."  
"I'm taller."  
"I'm more forward!"  
"I'm more mature!"  
"No, you're not. You're trying to grab my butt."


	8. Return XXX

**WARNING:** This chapter does contain a short lemon. If you don't want to read, just skip to the next chapter where it won't be included. You won't miss any plot!

---

With Xigbar gone, the house settled into an empty listlessness. For several days, Demyx wouldn't even get out of bed (he slept in mine; Marluxia and I shared the sofa), and even when he did there was no smiling, no idle comments, and no music. Only once did he smile, trying to be brave as he shuffled out of the sitting room curled around Xaldin's chest.  
"At least he knew."  
"Yeah," We'd all replied hollowly. "At least he knew."  
The condom, as far as I knew, stayed unused in Marluxia's pocket. Larxene in that respect had been far smarter than I had given her credit for; although at first the implied suggestion to have sex seemed completely inconsiderate when Demyx was mourning for his own boyfriend I soon realised that she hadn't been serious. What the condom had done, however, was break the tension between Marluxia and I so we could play happy families with Demyx.  
We honestly tried our best and so did he, but things just weren't the same. It made us wonder how we'd survived without Demyx at all before he'd arrived.

---

It must have been a week or so later that, in the dead of night, someone new arrived at our house. The days, without Xigbar's annoying taunts to distinguish them from one another, seemed to blur together.  
I sighed at the doorbell, rolling out of Marluxia's arms and the bed and grabbing my dressing gown.  
"I'll be right back."  
In the darkness (the hall light had broken last full moon), I couldn't quite make out the figure in the porch, even less their face, shrouded in the darkened hood of a coat.  
I opened the door a crack.  
"Who is it?"  
The man - he was too tall and straight to be female - pulled away his hood.  
"Xigbar?!"  
He looked terrible; his normally neat ponytail was falling loose with strands whipped across his forehead, his single eye sunken and haunted. Most noticeable, however, was the new addition to his cluttered face - a bat-shaped tattoo.  
"Is Demyx still here?"  
"He's asleep in the sitting room. Come in,"  
Xigbar stepped in through the doorway, rubbing at his arms.  
"God, what happened to this place?"  
I shook my head, not really wanting to remember Marluxia's insane expression as he slashed at my chest. We shuffled into the kitchen where I boiled the kettle for some tea.  
"Never mind that, what happened to you?"  
"I don't suppose you've ever heard of the Organisation?"  
"I've heard a few things." I replied non-committally.  
"A few hundred years ago researchers into a cure for the marked accidentally discovered a way to trigger the mutation," Xigbar told me. "Since then the Organisation has been using that method to take down anybody who isn't strong enough, or intelligent enough... or anybody who decides to oppose them."  
"I gathered that."  
"I worked with them for a long time, under the belief that they were just trying to help rid the world of monsters," Xigbar explained. "But after I found out about Demyx I couldn't kill the Unwanted any more. So I went and told them that I quit. I just had time to call Xaldin before they cut my line and took me out."  
"I'm sorry," I said quietly. "I feel like this is my fault."  
Xigbar shook his head.  
"Don't be. I'm glad I know the truth now. Although you might want to watch your back; once they realise you're serious about protecting the Marked they might come after you, too."  
I nodded, passing Xigbar a steaming mug of tea - sugared, like he always drank it.  
"I know some people who might be able to help with that."  
"Yeah, shame to let such a nice guy go to waste. I take back all that mean shit I said to you."  
"It's okay," I replied, pausing to listen to the gentle creak of footsteps descending the stairs. "That'll be Marluxia coming to see where I am, no doubt."  
"Marluxia? The werewolf, right?"  
"Yeah."  
Marluxia hadn't even made an effort, I resignedly realised as he rounded the corner and leaned petulantly against the jagged door frame. He was still just wearing his boxer shorts, hair a mess and eyes narrowed in a sleepy glare.  
"Bed's cold without you."  
Xigbar whistled, punching my shoulder as I coloured helplessly.  
"You didn't tell me he was your _boyfriend_!"  
"Oh, shut up."  
"This is Xigbar?" Marluxia asked, approaching to inspect the man carefully. "I told you he wasn't dead."  
"Yeah, okay, you can rub that in my face later." I muttered, rolling my eyes.  
"You honestly have no idea the things I want to rub in your face," Marluxia murmured back with the tiniest hint of a smile, walking over to raid the fridge again. "I'd slap him for the things he did to Demyx but I figure he's got enough punishment for that. Is he staying with us now?"  
"I'm not sure I can afford to look after him," I said carefully, glaring at Xigbar who had dissolved into almost-silent laughter for some reason I couldn't work out.  
"It's okay, I'm low maintenance."  
"Particularly compared to Larxene," Marluxia added.  
"And you," I replied, eager to retaliate for whatever it was that Marluxia had said that clearly insulted me for Xigbar to have found it so amusing. "Buying all that food isn't cheap, you know."  
"Just ask for some more cash from Xemnas."  
Xigbar laughed again, this time cynically.  
"Haha, old Mansex never gives out promotions."  
"He's a werewolf too," I explained as Marluxia crossed his eyes trying to work out the connection between "Xemnas" and "Mansex". "He and Saix. They're working inside the Organisation, although I don't know to what end."  
"Crazy shit," Xigbar said with enthusiasm. "You learn something new every day."  
"I'm surprised you haven't woken Demyx up yet," Marluxia said, halfway through a miscellaneous packet of meat.  
"We're getting there," I said, glancing at Xigbar. He nodded, and we both stood.

---

"Demyx?"  
"Huh?"  
I quietly stepped through the door and knelt in front of the sofa, gently laying a hand on Demyx's shoulder.  
"Someone's here to see you."  
"R-really? Who?"  
"He's waited a long time to meet you again." I whispered, waving Marluxia in with Xigbar. In the gloom, Demyx peered blindly at the two figures.  
"Hello?"  
"Hey, Demyx."  
In a split second they were in each other's arms.  
"Xigbar! I thought you were dead!"  
"Yeah, me too, kiddo."  
"Oh, I missed you so much,"  
"I missed you too."  
"I love you,"  
"Yeah, I know. I love you too. I'm real sorry about-"  
Demyx stopped Xigbar with a finger to his mouth.  
"Don't be. Forget all that. You're alive and that's all that matters."  
Demyx took away his finger, but Xigbar still couldn't continue because he found his lips stoppered with Demyx's instead.  
Marluxia quietly laced his fingers in mine.  
"We'd better leave them to it."  
As we left the room, closing the door behind us, I couldn't help but snicker.  
"So is this the later you were talking about?"  
"Mm. I definitely think so."

---

Marluxia easily lifted me off my feet, slinging me over his shoulder as he carried me upstairs.  
"What are you doing?"  
"I'm carrying you. What does it look like?" Marluxia replied, snickering as he affectionately patted my backside. "I'm just making sure you know who's the dominant man in this relationship."  
"You have got to be joking," I exclaimed, squirming a little but eventually resigning myself to being carried and then unceremoniously dumped on the bed. "You might be stronger, but I'm older and more mature; and anyway, Larxene gave the condom to _me_."  
"Oh, be quiet." Marluxia huffed, straddling me, raining kisses on my lips and neck. I wrapped my arms around him as he around me, and we pulled each other close, bodies grinding together as we invaded each other's mouths with kiss after beautiful kiss.  
It was amazing; it was as though we'd found each other in the other man and so overpowered as I was by this I barely even noticed Marluxia stripping me of my clothes, my own fingers fumbling with clasps and buttons and zips, pulling helplessly at the fabric to reveal more perfect, marred skin, to ghost my fingertips over every faint recollection of a scar, as Marluxia pressed himself into my neck, and bit down, hard.  
Where I expected nothing more than pain at his sharp teeth on my skin, I found pleasure - helpless, moaning pleasure and a burning, tingling need to be satisfied.  
He paused for a moment, palm resting on the bandage across my chest.  
"It doesn't matter," I murmured, breathier than I anticipated, and he nodded light headedly, blue eyes capturing mine for a moment before he leaned down for more, more, more. Suddeny I realised that I'd be content just to lie here and let Marluxia have his way - this time - because I'd be with _him_, close, closer than ever before, and anyway, I could assert my dominance later...  
I brushed my hands along his naked form as he quivered in anticipation, finding that soft patch of fur behind his ears to draw out a gasp, or a moan, and we fell on each other again, fumbling drunkenly for more skin to touch, more limbs to cling to each other, pull ourselves closer in a need to just be together. In the darkness I wasn't quite sure where Marluxia was, so I had to rely on touch to find my way about his body - but somehow I doubted that Marluxia cared, muscles tensing in turn to my touch. He was hot, almost burning with lust.  
It was better than kisses in bubble baths, it was better than curling up together to sleep, it was infinitely better than arguing. I drew my legs up to beckon Marluxia closer still, in if he so desired, and he complied with nails that tingled along my thighs, the rub of skin against skin, on me, around me, _in_ me.  
Neither of us were prepared, and it hurt. It hurt so much I almost screamed, bit down into what I thought was my lip but turned out to be Marluxia's. Blood mingled in our mouths as we pressed against each other, as we found a hard, deep rhythm. I feared each new thrust and the dizzying pain that accompanied, but at the same time I felt as though if Marluxia weren't there to support me I would simply fall apart, fragility tested to the absolute limit to beckon perfect release.  
The fall back down to the night was slow.  
Once my blood had stopped racing and my head pounding, I allowed myself to press my nose into Marluxia's neck and prise my stiffened fingers away from the crumpled bedsheets. I reached up to find that soft fur by his ears again. He let out a little purring moan, wriggling slightly to make himself more comfortable. He was heavy and warm, his scent mingling in the air and filling my nose. His fingers were curled in on themselves, I noted, to protect my skin from his claws, his palms pressed against my shoulders. I prodded them gently, and he drew his arms around me, holding my head to his chest, protective.  
After what seemed like hours, I managed to convince myself that hopefully Marluxia was asleep, without the overwhelming probability that he actually was.  
"Marluxia?"  
He harrumphed quietly, winding his fingers tighter in my hair.  
"I love you."  
In the next few seconds he gently rubbed his cheek against mine, finding my hand to thread his in mine.  
"I love you too, Vexen."  
Despite the ache of my body, I slept comfortably.

---

The next day once work was finished, after quietly conversing with Xaldin, I took the lift to Floor Thirteen and carefully knocked on Xemnas' office door.  
"Come in, Vexen."  
I slid the door open and stepped inside. There was Xemnas shuffling papers on his desk, Saïx sitting on the only space that wasn't covered in paperwork.  
"I take it Xigbar found you."  
I nodded, figuring that Xemnas probably knew even more than I did and deciding not to question it.  
"We know why you're here," Saïx continued seamlessly. "We can protect you from the Organisation as long as you keep your head down. We already have your household internet connections blocked from their scans, and several Marked are guarding your house."  
He turned to Xemnas, who pulled out a thick envelope and continued.  
"Secondly, a monetary deposit for your care of the three Marked in your home. I'd suggest that you make some repairs to that house before it falls apart completely."  
"Thank you, sir."  
Xemnas smiled minutely, and it didn't sit quite right on his face.  
"Thirdly, there is a man I think you should get in touch with. His name is Lexaeus."  
As Xemnas spoke, Saïx handed me a card with a list of contact details on it.  
"He knows of you. He can help the werewolf named Marluxia."  
"Thank you, sir."


	9. Return

With Xigbar gone, the house settled into an empty listlessness. For several days, Demyx wouldn't even get out of bed (he slept in mine; Marluxia and I shared the sofa), and even when he did there was no smiling, no idle comments, and no music. Only once did he smile, trying to be brave as he shuffled out of the sitting room curled around Xaldin's chest.  
"At least he knew."  
"Yeah," We'd all replied hollowly. "At least he knew."  
The condom, as far as I knew, stayed unused in Marluxia's pocket. Larxene in that respect had been far smarter than I had given her credit for; although at first the implied suggestion to have sex seemed completely inconsiderate when Demyx was mourning for his own boyfriend I soon realised that she hadn't been serious. What the condom had done, however, was break the tension between Marluxia and I so we could play happy families with Demyx.  
We honestly tried our best and so did he, but things just weren't the same. It made us wonder how we'd survived without Demyx at all before he'd arrived.

---

It must have been a week or so later that, in the dead of night, someone new arrived at our house. The days, without Xigbar's annoying taunts to distinguish them from one another, seemed to blur together.  
I sighed at the doorbell, rolling out of Marluxia's arms and the bed and grabbing my dressing gown.  
"I'll be right back."  
In the darkness (the hall light had broken last full moon), I couldn't quite make out the figure in the porch, even less their face, shrouded in the darkened hood of a coat.  
I opened the door a crack.  
"Who is it?"  
The man - he was too tall and straight to be female - pulled away his hood.  
"Xigbar?!"  
He looked terrible; his normally neat ponytail was falling loose with strands whipped across his forehead, his single eye sunken and haunted. Most noticeable, however, was the new addition to his cluttered face - a bat-shaped tattoo.  
"Is Demyx still here?"  
"He's asleep in the sitting room. Come in,"  
Xigbar stepped in through the doorway, rubbing at his arms.  
"God, what happened to this place?"  
I shook my head, not really wanting to remember Marluxia's insane expression as he slashed at my chest. We shuffled into the kitchen where I boiled the kettle for some tea.  
"Never mind that, what happened to you?"  
"I don't suppose you've ever heard of the Organisation?"  
"I've heard a few things." I replied non-committally.  
"A few hundred years ago researchers into a cure for the marked accidentally discovered a way to trigger the mutation," Xigbar told me. "Since then the Organisation has been using that method to take down anybody who isn't strong enough, or intelligent enough... or anybody who decides to oppose them."  
"I gathered that."  
"I worked with them for a long time, under the belief that they were just trying to help rid the world of monsters," Xigbar explained. "But after I found out about Demyx I couldn't kill the Unwanted any more. So I went and told them that I quit. I just had time to call Xaldin before they cut my line and took me out."  
"I'm sorry," I said quietly. "I feel like this is my fault."  
Xigbar shook his head.  
"Don't be. I'm glad I know the truth now. Although you might want to watch your back; once they realise you're serious about protecting the Marked they might come after you, too."  
I nodded, passing Xigbar a steaming mug of tea - sugared, like he always drank it.  
"I know some people who might be able to help with that."  
"Yeah, shame to let such a nice guy go to waste. I take back all that mean shit I said to you."  
"It's okay," I replied, pausing to listen to the gentle creak of footsteps descending the stairs. "That'll be Marluxia coming to see where I am, no doubt."  
"Marluxia? The werewolf, right?"  
"Yeah."  
Marluxia hadn't even made an effort, I resignedly realised as he rounded the corner and leaned petulantly against the jagged door frame. He was still just wearing his boxer shorts, hair a mess and eyes narrowed in a sleepy glare.  
"Bed's cold without you."  
Xigbar whistled, punching my shoulder as I coloured helplessly.  
"You didn't tell me he was your _boyfriend_!"  
"Oh, shut up."  
"This is Xigbar?" Marluxia asked, approaching to inspect the man carefully. "I told you he wasn't dead."  
"Yeah, okay, you can rub that in my face later." I muttered, rolling my eyes.  
"You honestly have no idea the things I want to rub in your face," Marluxia murmured back with the tiniest hint of a smile, walking over to raid the fridge again. "I'd slap him for the things he did to Demyx but I figure he's got enough punishment for that. Is he staying with us now?"  
"I'm not sure I can afford to look after him," I said carefully, glaring at Xigbar who had dissolved into almost-silent laughter for some reason I couldn't work out.  
"It's okay, I'm low maintenance."  
"Particularly compared to Larxene," Marluxia added.  
"And you," I replied, eager to retaliate for whatever it was that Marluxia had said that clearly insulted me for Xigbar to have found it so amusing. "Buying all that food isn't cheap, you know."  
"Just ask for some more cash from Xemnas."  
Xigbar laughed again, this time cynically.  
"Haha, old Mansex never gives out promotions."  
"He's a werewolf too," I explained as Marluxia crossed his eyes trying to work out the connection between "Xemnas" and "Mansex". "He and Saix. They're working inside the Organisation, although I don't know to what end."  
"Crazy shit," Xigbar said with enthusiasm. "You learn something new every day."  
"I'm surprised you haven't woken Demyx up yet," Marluxia said, halfway through a miscellaneous packet of meat.  
"We're getting there," I said, glancing at Xigbar. He nodded, and we both stood.

---

"Demyx?"  
"Huh?"  
I quietly stepped through the door and knelt in front of the sofa, gently laying a hand on Demyx's shoulder.  
"Someone's here to see you."  
"R-really? Who?"  
"He's waited a long time to meet you again." I whispered, waving Marluxia in with Xigbar. In the gloom, Demyx peered blindly at the two figures.  
"Hello?"  
"Hey, Demyx."  
In a split second they were in each other's arms.  
"Xigbar! I thought you were dead!"  
"Yeah, me too, kiddo."  
"Oh, I missed you so much,"  
"I missed you too."  
"I love you,"  
"Yeah, I know. I love you too. I'm real sorry about-"  
Demyx stopped Xigbar with a finger to his mouth.  
"Don't be. Forget all that. You're alive and that's all that matters."  
Demyx took away his finger, but Xigbar still couldn't continue because he found his lips stoppered with Demyx's instead.  
Marluxia quietly laced his fingers in mine.  
"We'd better leave them to it."  
As we left the room, closing the door behind us, I couldn't help but snicker.  
"So is this the later you were talking about?"  
"Mm. I definitely think so."

---

The next day once work was finished, after quietly conversing with Xaldin, I took the lift to Floor Thirteen and carefully knocked on Xemnas' office door.  
"Come in, Vexen."  
I slid the door open and stepped inside. There was Xemnas shuffling papers on his desk, Saïx sitting on the only space that wasn't covered in paperwork.  
"I take it Xigbar found you."  
I nodded, figuring that Xemnas probably knew even more than I did and deciding not to question it.  
"We know why you're here," Saïx continued seamlessly. "We can protect you from the Organisation as long as you keep your head down. We already have your household internet connections blocked from their scans, and several Marked are guarding your house."  
He turned to Xemnas, who pulled out a thick envelope and continued.  
"Secondly, a monetary deposit for your care of the three Marked in your home. I'd suggest that you make some repairs to that house before it falls apart completely."  
"Thank you, sir."  
Xemnas smiled minutely, and it didn't sit quite right on his face.  
"Thirdly, there is a man I think you should get in touch with. His name is Lexaeus."  
As Xemnas spoke, Saïx handed me a card with a list of contact details on it.  
"He knows of you. He can help the werewolf named Marluxia."  
"Thank you, sir."


	10. Relentless

With the house full of boringly gay men, Larxene left once more. I bought a new double bed for Demyx and Xigbar, and moved Larxene into the storeroom (she was less than happy about that). Apparently Axel had been following her around like a puppy ever since he'd "broken the bed" and she was only now going back to him. I almost felt sorry for him, but then I realised that it was Larxene, so he was bringing it upon himself.  
Work was odd without Xigbar, but that was the least of what my mind was focused on as we wallpapered over the damaged walls, replaced the broken door - only now did I realise just how close Marluxia had come to breaking through that night - and fixed all the furniture that we could. It wasn't until the full moon was nearing once more that I remembered about Lexaeus. Where was that card? I found it in a kitchen drawer, and dialled the number.  
"We've been expecting you, Vexen."  
The voice had American accent that sounded like that of a young boy. Like _that_ wasn't creepy.  
"Uh... Hello?"  
"My name is Zexion Summers. I am Lexaeus' benefactor. He's been wanting to talk to you. I presume that Xemnas has your communication lines secured?"  
"He said that he was blocking against the Organisation," I replied unsurely, and the man - Zexion - made an approving noise.  
"Good. You are human?"  
"I am."  
"And you are benefacting a gargoyle, a vampire and a werewolf?"  
"... Yes."  
"I work for the Organisation," Zexion continued almost seamlessly. He had an intelligent, eloquent voice; clearly he was a very intelligent man. But young. "At least, that is what people think. I doubt Xemnas has told you much, but within the Organisation is a group known as Organisation XIII. We are working for freedom - and eventually, a cure for the Marked. Both Xemnas and I are key players within Organisation XIII."  
"Okay," I replied. "So who is Lexaeus, and why do I need to talk to him?"  
Marluxia had just arrived and was looking for more food in the fridge. Disappointingly, he found it empty (Xigbar had used plenty of Larxene's foundation on his cheek and was out buying more, since it was an overcast day), so he decided to bite my ear instead. I batted him away.  
"We will speak later at a safer location," Zexion decided. "The Organisation is tracking us. I will be visiting England in two days. I will meet you, and the werewolf Marluxia, in London then."  
"Thank you," I said, although I was still as confused as I had been before the call.  
"And Vexen?"  
"Yes?"  
"I know you never planned to get caught up in all of this. Be careful. The Organisation is dangerous but the Thirteenth Order will protect you. You will be rewarded for your efforts."  
There was a click as he hung up and I quietly put the phone down.  
"I'm out of my depth." I decided quietly. "I am completely and utterly out of my depth."  
Marluxia sympathetically dug his cold fingers down the front of my shirt to brush against the bandages still wrapped around my chest.  
"Serves you right for falling in love with a werewolf."  
I laughed humourlessly.  
"You say that like I asked to,"  
"You were _begging_ for it," Marluxia murmured sarcastically against my collarbone.

---

"How are we supposed to get Marluxia down to London?"  
That was Larxene. She'd come back temporarily for reasons none of us could fathom, and now the four of us (Marluxia was... somewhere...) were in the kitchen talking about how to get to London for tomorrow to meet Zexion.  
"Ain't you got a car?" Xigbar asked, and I shook my head.  
"We could rent one, I suppose, but I'd rather be spending my money on other things. And a train would be a lot faster-"  
"Except Marly can't go on the train."  
"Who's to say?"  
Marluxia had appeared at the doorway.  
"Demyx, don't you know anything? How do you think the Marked travel? Following the train is easy,"  
"A train that goes at over two hundred miles per hour?" I asked sceptically. Marluxia just grinned.  
"Even better."

---

Tomorrow arrived, and early in the morning Larxene and I made our way to the railway station with Marluxia. He refused to divulge his amazing plan to somehow move at two hundred and fifty miles per hour, though, and I was still sceptical. But I left him to it, and after a quick kiss boarded the express train to London.  
Half an hour went past - no sign of Marluxia. I made idle chatter with Larxene, but I had a book and she had a magazine and we soon fell into silence.  
Then there was a knock at the window. Marluxia was outside, hanging down from the roof with an urgent expression on his face. I quickly opened the window and with a complicates series of shrugs Marluxia climbed inside the carriage.  
A moment later we were enveloped in darkness.  
"You never told me there's be a tunnel," Marluxia said as he raided my bags for food, and he sounded a little put out.  
"You were sitting on top of the train?" Larxene asked, impressed.  
"Yeah. The Marked do it all the time. But now I've climbed inside they'll probably set off the alarms-"  
_"Attention, all passengers. There has been a security breach on the train. I repeat, there has been a security breach. Please do not move from your carriages. We will find the intruder. Please do not move from your carriages."_  
Marluxia rolled his eyes, and glanced at the window where the darkness was still occasionally flashing with the blur of strip lights.  
"Now let's hope that we come out of the tunnel before the police arrive."  
He was poised by the window as we heard the first footsteps echo down the train, automatic doors slide open and closed closer and closer. Cold underground air still slipped past.  
"I'll hold them off," Larxene said quietly, standing and making her way outside of our compartment. Moments later, I could hear her shrill voice arguing with one of the guards. I glared desperately at Marluxia and he hissed back at me.  
"If they do come in I can take care of them."  
The glare of the sun flashed back as we hurtled out of the tunnel and Marluxia wasted no time in hitching himself up onto the window frame, disappearing with the flash of a pink tail seconds before Larxene returned, grumbling about needing to pee. The guard glanced at the empty seats around us and, satisfied, disappeared.  
"He got out?" Larxene whispered quietly at me.  
"Just." I replied, running a hand through my hair.  
Before we knew it, we were in St Pancras Station, London, and there was Marluxia slinking in the shadows of roofs and guttering as we stepped out onto the road.  
"Come on, we've got ten minutes. Let's go."  
The three of us made our way to some apartment that had been designated as our meeting place, Larxene and I on the pavement and Marluxia following our steps way above us. Sometimes we noticed the flashes of other Unwanted; a vampire skulking in an alleyway, a gargoyle curled up in some little alcove, even some small creature whose mark I didn't recognise skittering into a drain.  
And then, a diminutive angel perched on the bottom step up to the apartment. Seeing us, he stood, wings shuffling and rearranging as he did so.  
"Vexen. I am Zexion. I presume that this is Larxene?"  
He shook both our hands, looking up and nodding to Marluxia on the roof. He jumped down, landing neatly beside me.  
"Come inside."  
We were enveloped in a stark white hallway, and then a kitchen to match. Inside was what must have been the tallest man I had ever seen; a werewolf but somehow more _wolf_ than _were_, at least compared to Marluxia.  
Speaking of Marluxia, he had suddenly hissed, lingering by the doorway with his fur bristling. His blue eyes were concentrated on the other werewolf, locked in a territorial glare.  
"Hormones," Zexion commented flippantly with a brush to the unfamiliar werewolf's shoulder, and a few whispered words in his ear. "Calm down. Lexaeus is not a threat."  
Marluxia didn't look convinced as he stood protectively by my side, but he'd dropped his gaze as Lexaeus did the same.  
"They're always like this when it comes close to the full moon," Zexion continued as he boiled the kettle. "So. Business."  
I nodded.  
"Why do I need to speak to you?"  
"I have intelligence that you've been having difficulty with Marluxia's transformation," Zexion said like he'd already planned everything out, gesturing to the thin lines across my cheek. "We can help with that."  
"How?" Marluxia demanded snappishly, but he was ignored.  
"Vexen, how much do you know of the Marked?"  
"Not terribly much," I admitted. "Only so much as I've gathered from the Marked that I've met."  
"Have you ever come across the term "true Marked" before?"  
I shook my head.  
"There are three ways in which a Marked being can occur, you see," Zexion continued. "The first is a natural mutation in human DNA that causes the transformation. The second is artificially, using the techniques that the Organisation has developed. Thirdly, they can be Unwanted from birth. This is the rarest kind of Marked. Most are detected at a foetal stage, and aborted. Those who survive childbirth rarely last more than a couple of years. We currently have details of but eight true Marked over the entire world. There could be more, but it's unlikely."  
"And Lexaeus is a true werewolf?" I guessed.  
"Precisely." Zexion said. "True werewolves bear the most difference to normal werewolves - they are larger and a great deal stronger, and although they are affected by the lunar cycles they transform not at the full moon, but at will. True gargoyles and vampires also differ, but not to such an extent."  
We all looked at Lexaeus, who had pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and was taking a long drag. Zexion gave him a disapproving glare.  
"We have been using Lexaeus for research purposes and we have discovered the hormone that controls these changes in place of the moon."  
"Right."  
Zexion picked up a small, cuboid box, and pulled out a syringe.  
"Small injections of this hormone can stop Marluxia from transforming at the full moon, and conserve energy stores for one transformation per month should the need arise."  
Marluxia was tense, standing in in a protective stance beside me, and I gently reached out to brush my fingers against his palm. His attention caught, he sagged a little.  
Zexion handed the three of us each a cup of tea, gesturing to the table.  
"Do have a seat. Of course, it's completely up to you but this will help the situation with Marluxia a lot easier to deal with."  
Marluxia hissed animalistically again.  
"I don't want you to mess with my body like I'm some kind of test subject."  
"It's for your own good," Lexaeus said uninterestedly, puffing out a cloud of smoke through his lips.  
"What's the point?" Marluxia asked incredulously. "How much does it cost to synthesise one syringe of that stuff? I have a home. I'm strong. I can look after myself. What are you doing for the Unwanted lost and fading on the streets, hiding in alleyways and living every day in fear of their lives? Isn't it them who you vowed to help?"  
"It's none of your concern," Zexion said with the tone of voice of somebody who hadn't bothered to listen to a word that Marluxia said. "It is your duty to sit tight and let the players of Organisation XIII deal with the bigger picture."  
"None of my concern?" Marluxia echoed, stepping forwards, fists clenched in anger.  
"Marluxia-"  
I held my hand to his chest to hold him back, and he irritably brushed me away.  
"None of my concern? There are my _people_ who are dying each day on the streets of the world! It's all very well for you in your disguises sitting away from the massacre in your offices as we risk our very lives by simply _existing_. 'None of my concern' my arse."  
After a few seconds of silence, Larxene giggled nervously.  
"Yeah. Thanks for the tea. We should probably go now."  
I sighed, glaring at Marluxia. Okay, so it was nice that he cared, but Organisation XIII were the _good_ guys. He should have been grateful, and instead he screamed.  
"I'm sorry for your trouble." I mumbled, standing from my seat and leading Marluxia into the hallway. Lexaeus still didn't seem interested, and Zexion's lips were drawn into a tight, humourless smile as he threw the box containing the syringe to me.  
"Just in case your werewolf should decide to change his mind."  
Marluxia glanced back, frowning, and for a moment I noticed that his eyes had locked onto Lexaeus'.  
"Come on. We should be leaving."

---

The ride back was flawless, Marluxia an inky dot slipping from the roof of the train in the evening light. We ate with Xigbar and Demyx, then retired to bed. I didn't bring up the injection, considering that Marluxia was in a bad enough mood and seemed strictly adverse to the hormones that would stop his transformation.  
"Hey, Vexen."  
"Hm?"  
Marluxia had decided to rest his head on my lap as I shuffled my way through one of the tabloids I'd picked up on the train. At that point I place the newspaper down, tangling my hand in Marluxia's hair to find that soft patch behind his ears.  
"Why do people still think that the Unwanted are monsters?"  
"I don't know," I truthfully replied. "I don't think that many people realise that most Marked used to be people. I mean human people. And the ones that do probably think that if you turn that's it, you just lose all sentient thought. It's the fear, I suppose."  
"Huh."  
Marluxia hitched himself up onto his elbows, crawling onto my lab to sit on my, curling his fingers around the muscle of my neck.  
"What do you think?"  
"I think that the Unwanted are no different from humans. There are good people and bad people."  
Marluxia didn't seem convinced.  
"I suppose so."  
I sighed a little, kissing Marluxia's nose as I rubbed at his ears.  
"Come on. Lighten up; it's not so bad. Organisation XIII are working to free the Unwanted, and right now you at least have a home. Sometimes I think that you're so preoccupied with the problems that you forget about the good things in your life, instead."  
Surprisingly, Marluxia didn't explode into a self righteous rant about the other Marked on the streets, or all of his personal problems. He just looked me dead in the eye for a moment before sighing and glancing down.  
"Maybe you're right."  
"I mean, you're proud," I continued, sensing an opportunity to speak my own thoughts without being instantly being rebuked. "And that's a good thing. But you also have to think about the good side of things, as well. Maybe not quite to Demyx's extreme, I'm not asking for anything like that, but I think it would help all of us, you know. Things aren't as bad as they seem."  
Marluxia nodded.  
"Do you think things will get better?"  
"Yeah," I replied. "I mean, we've got Xemnas and Saïx, and Zexion all working for the freedom of the Marked, and they're the ones that can made a difference. Things'll get better."  
Marluxia gave no reply to my statement, and simply bid me goodnight before settling down to sleep.


	11. Refuse

In the following months, Marluxia became cold. He seemed to cool gradually with the temperature; as winter drew in there was no more lounging around in the garden or even on the sofa, there was no more raiding of the fridge, there were no more interruptions of bath time with wet kisses, and no more rough-and-tumble, messy sex in the deep of the night when everybody else was supposed to be asleep.  
I knew that the discovery of Organisation XIII had played some part in his distance - not just from me, but from everybody - but I didn't know how, or to what extent. By the time December was rolling around, he was barely speaking to me at all. The only time we came into contact with each other was at night, when he still settled in my bed. But he wasn't curled around me like he used to be, and aside from a brusque "Good night" every evening, he had nothing to say.  
Knowing that Marluxia, volatile even at his best, was going through a difficult period, I tried not to let it get to me - to not let myself be bothered by each increasing time span between kisses because there still _were_ kisses, and to let Marluxia have a bit of space lest I drive him away by holding him back too much. But... it wasn't easy, and eventually I had had enough. I approached him one evening, just as he was stripping down for bed.  
"Okay, Marluxia. What's wrong?"  
For several minutes, he didn't reply, until he found a pair of flannel pyjama trousers and came to join me in the bed. But instead of lying to my side like he had done recently, he forced me down onto my back and curled up miserably on my chest.  
"What's the point?" He whispered as I found the fluff behind his ears and began to rub my fingers into it in gentle, neat circles.  
"What's the point of what?"  
"Of everything."  
"If I knew that I would be a very rich man indeed."  
"I didn't mean it like that," Marluxia huffed. "I just..."  
He didn't elaborate, and it was for a long time that we were locked in silence, but at least we were locked _together_.  
Eventually Marluxia sighed.  
"What are they trying to achieve?"  
"Organisation XIII?" I guessed. "They're going to free the Marked."  
"As if they could," Marluxia muttered sourly. "But they're powerless."  
I glanced questioningly at Marluxia, and he continued.  
"Think about it. They've climbed the ladders of power, sure, but to what end? Only to trap themselves at an impossible impasse. They can do nothing; too much rests on their secrecy. If they were to make any moves to free the Unwanted, their true motives would be instantly revealed and they would be killed or worse."  
"You've thought about this a lot, haven't you?"  
Marluxia's fists clenched softly in the fabric of my t shirt, his face pressed against my chest. I could feel each breath on my skin as he inhaled and exhaled, slowly.  
"Every waking moment."  
"They must know what they're doing," I eventually mumbled. "Otherwise they wouldn't be putting their lives in danger for people like you, would they?"  
Marluxia shook his head.  
"I don't know. I don't _know_, I can't trust them... Don't you ever get the feeling with people like Xemnas and Zexion that they're not telling us everything?"  
"Admittedly, yes, but-"  
Marluxia interrupted, passionate anger swelling in his voice.  
"Don't you think that they could have their own agenda?"  
"But they're Marked themselves," I protested, remembering all too easily the moment that Xemnas stripped away the patch on his face to reveal the signature crescent moon beneath. "Why would they _not_ want the freedom of their own kind?"  
"You're forgetting how selfish most people are," Marluxia said sourly. "Give your average werewolf a bed and food, why should he care about the plight of others like him? Take Demyx, for example. He's content to let other Unwanted simply _die_, and because he's got a safe home it suddenly isn't his problem any more. Xemnas and Saïx could easily be the same."  
"But what reason would they - or the people who could potentially be controlling them - have for letting you live?" I argued. "I have three Unwanted living in my house. With access to the internet and communications technology, they could easily become dangerous."  
"There are a variety of reasons," Marluxia replied a little vaguely, then paused to think of a couple. "For example, involving a human - who has rights and protection under law - could be detrimental to their operation and purposes."  
"I thought that the Organisation was the law?" I said. "Or if not, above it."  
"My guess is that they manipulate it, back it up, keep people scared enough to hate the Marked... but they can't change human laws without some kind of backlash." Marluxia replied. A moment later, he yawned. "I know you don't really care for this sort of thing."  
"I care about it if you do," I said reproachfully. "I love you, remember?"  
Marluxia let out a rueful sigh, the corners of his mouth lifted upwards by a hesitant smile. It was at moments like these that he looked so young, that I remembered that, inside, he was only a child, a confused teenager whose life had suddenly been ripped from him without warning or explanation.  
"Yeah," He said thoughtfully. "I love you too."  
I smoothed my thumb across his cheek, past the stark black tattoo that branded him forever.  
"Marluxia?"  
"Hm?"  
"How did you change?"  
The question made Marluxia frown, his eyebrows creasing unpleasantly.  
"That's a painful memory you're asking me to divulge."  
"I just want to know," I said gently. "I want to understand you better. I want to know, even if it's just a little bit, what it's like."  
Marluxia considered this for a few moments, then nodded, sighing.  
"I'd just finished my exams," He said. "I had had my results a few days beforehand. Straight A's. It happened on my prom night. I'd been feeling a bit odd for several days beforehand but I didn't want to miss out on the opportunity, since it was the last time I would see a lot of my friends. I was changing schools for Sixth Form, you see."  
He waved his hand vaguely, thickly swallowing.  
"We were at the hotel where the prom was taking place, and it must have been at about midnight that I went outside with a few of my friends for a breath of fresh air. It was a full moon, and as soon as the clouds parted - I changed. Just like that."  
"Oh." I said quietly.  
"It was the most horrible thing I've ever experienced," Marluxia continued. "Of course, transforming is always horrible, but at least now I'm expecting it. I can prepare for the pain. The first time, I had no such luck. I'd been outside for a few minutes when my skin began to prickle - like this."  
He dug his nails tightly into the skin on my back, and like a deflating balloon, I let out a pained, unreal hiss. He quickly relinquished his hold, smoothing out the crumpled fabric of my shirt and softly massaging the welts.  
"All over my body," He said sourly. "When you change, you can feel yourself _swelling_, like somebody's filling you with blood and rage. I remember screaming, I remember the seams on my clothes ripping, I remember the colour in my vision fading to black and white. I tried to stop myself, but I had no idea what was going on..." He trailed off into silence, glancing momentarily at me in the half-darkness.  
I kissed his tears away.  
"When I woke in the morning I was bleeding in a ditch at the side of a road somewhere," He murmured after a moment of shared solemnity. "I had this-" He pointed to the mark on his cheek; "And I had these."  
He ran his fingers across several scars on his arms and chest - a badly healed slit here, a bullet wound there.  
"I was lucky to have survived. I think that I ran."  
"And after that?" I prompted gently. Marluxia barked a laugh.  
"For a while I tried to return home, but I soon gave up hope. I lived for a while with a pack of werewolves like me, but we were gunned out after a few months. I don't know who of us survived, but it wasn't many. I'd been living solo after that, surviving attacks by sheer, blind luck. Then, one night, Larxene found me - the rest, they say, is history."  
There wasn't really anything I could say to that, so I didn't. I just held Marluxia close as he surrendered to mourning, painful helplessness in my arms. But that night I came clear about the Unwanted. Marluxia's story wasn't the only one, there must have been hundreds, thousands of people in this country alone with their lives stripped from them by a genetic mutation they couldn't control, and even more who, like Lexaeus, were born with the affliction - or never born at all. Aborted, like that. How many innocent people had the system that everybody thought kept them safe killed?  
Then there were people like Demyx, turned artificially as a last resort as though being Marked was somehow better than death, or like Xigbar - revulsion turned in my stomach as his name and circumstances swam forth in my mind - who had got on the wrong side of the Organisation and had their lives forcefully ripped away.  
No wonder Marluxia felt so strongly about the freedom of the Marked. But what could we, just a haphazard half-family of five people living in the comfortable suburbs of a small English city, do?

---

The morning was Saturday, and I awoke to Marluxia's whispering breath in my ear, to the palms of his hands pressed one between my shoulder blades and one in the small of my back, to his warm tail laying slack on my hip.  
No matter how bleak the situation, I was glad to have him back in my arms. When he stirred a considerable while after me, it was all soft kisses and touches as we coaxed each other to life.  
Larxene was in the kitchen when we came down, and she tipped towards us an imaginary hat as we entered.  
"Lexaeus called." She said once the menial task of greeting and requesting cups of tea was done with. Marluxia perked up immediately.  
"He did?"  
"Said he needed to speak with you, Marluxia," Larxene continued, pointing to the werewolf. "I told him that you were probably off having make up sex with Vexen."  
I spluttered indignantly at her but Marluxia simply smiled quirkily, glancing in my direction.  
"Later."  
"He didn't say anything else," Larxene continued. "I guess it was private or something. You didn't take those meds, did you, Marly?"  
"That's _Marluxia_," Marluxia huffed, but he shook his head in response to her question. "And no. Lexaeus told me not to."  
"He did?" I said as a mug of tea was presented to me, surprised. "When was that?"  
"Just before we left," Marluxia said, stretching. A shiver ran down his spine, and fluffed up his tail in interesting ways. "He didn't actually say anything explicitly, but the look he gave me suggested that it was probably a bad idea. I don't think that Zexion can be trusted."  
"He's an angel," Larxene mumbled with mouth full of toast. "You can't trust angels."  
"You're the first person I've heard ever to say that," I muttered back. "But.. we'll see."  
Marluxia had found the phone and was calling back Lexaeus. I listened in, but I couldn't hear what the other werewolf was saying and all Marluxia seemed to be replying with was monosyllabic confirmations to unheard questions.  
Five minutes later, he put down the phone.  
"It seems that I was right." Marluxia announced, finding the syringe and emptying its contents down the sink. "Things have been changing," He continued; "The Organisation is already beginning to fall apart and so too Organisation XIII inside it. A man in league with the latter was discovered, and killed. We-" he gestured to the three of us in the room, and to the sitting room where the Xigbar and Demyx collective was probably cuddling, "Are officially wanted."  
"Makes a change from _Un_wanted," Larxene remarked.  
"And by "wanted", I mean "wanted dead"." Marluxia said dryly.  
"Ah."

---

On Lexaeus' command, we boarded up the windows, disconnected our internet and phone lines, and set up camp in the kitchen with mattresses dragged down from the bedrooms. The only thing left connecting us to the outside world was Larxene's mobile phone, and in the middle of the kitchen table it sat, waiting on a call that none of us were certain would come.  
It was surreal. It was surreal, and I was scared.  
Sensing my fear, Marluxia sat next to me, one arm around my shoulder, and so too did Xigbar and Demyx huddle close together, leaving Larxene to pace with increasing agitation back and forth, back and forth, from fridge to radiator and back again. None of us said a word as the night drew in, as howls echoed somewhere in the distance. Marluxia spoke once -  
"At least it isn't a full moon."  
- and humourlessly, we laughed, but that was it.  
It was nearing midnight when the phone rang. We all jumped, and Demyx laughed nervously. Larxene picked it up, tense.  
"Yeah. Right. Okay."  
She put the phone down.  
"Zexion and Lexaeus are here," She said. "They're here and they're coming in."  
I nodded, standing stiffly and unbolting the door to usher them in. Lexaeus easily pushed the kitchen table across the door once they were in, and they made their way back to the kitchen.  
"I trust that Marluxia has not taken the medications."  
"No."  
"Turn off the phone."  
"Okay."  
Zexion pulled out a device of some sort, and with it scanned the kitchen - it turned up nothing and satisfied, he pocketed it and sat down a little away from the rest of us. Lexaeus simply nodded towards Marluxia, towering protectively at Zexion's side.  
"I think it's time that you all knew what exactly is going on." Zexion said.  
"Damn right," Marluxia muttered under his breath, and was shot down with a cold glare.  
"The situation has been too volatile to tell you previously," Zexion continued. "We have just had to trust in your own judgement for your survival. But now... we realise that things are only getting worse. The Unwanted are stirring across the American continents, and with them destruction and death has followed. It is not safe here. It is not safe anywhere."  
We all nodded dutifully, except Marluxia who rolled his eyes.  
"We have been dancing on hot coals," Zexion declared. "Those in league with Organisation XIII are in great danger indeed. It has been considered best that we take refuge in a safe haven until things have... settled."  
"So we run." Marluxia clarified sourly. "So we run with our tails between our legs and leave those not fortunate enough to be "in league" with us to die at the hands of the Organisation?"  
Zexion sighed, hands held up in surrender.  
"There will be... sacrifices..."  
"There is nothing noble in cowering in shadows!" Marluxia yelled back, teeth bared in an ugly snarl.  
"There is even less noble in dying for a lost cause." Zexion retorted, but I could see the pain in his one visible turquoise eye. He, like me, cared for the Unwanted and their lives, and from the way he looked at Lexaeus I suspected that it could be more than just that, but he knew that the Organisation learning of his mutiny would cost him and his loved ones dear.  
Marluxia clearly did not understand.  
"It is not a lost cause if there is but one fool left to fight for it." He instantly snapped back. I saw, out of the corner of my eye, Demyx silently mouth something, and I gave him a questioning glance.  
"He's quoting," The gargoyle whispered. The fear was in his eyes, wracking his body.  
"It doesn't matter," Marluxia huffed. "What I say still holds true. I refuse to run when _my kind_ are dying in the streets."  
Zexion threw back a vile glare, rising to the challenge.  
"Do you think I do not _know_?" He demanded. "Do you think that I could be so _heartless_ as to simply turn a blind eye at each new reported death, as lives around us simply _crumble_?"  
"And yet you run." Marluxia stated.  
"If I escape to return with my life and reputation in tact," Zexion corrected, "Then I live to fight another day when I actually have a chance to take down the system."  
"You are _cowering_!" Marluxia insisted, pointing an accusing finger. "You and your cohort of despicable friends, cowering. What happened to your pride? Did the years of hiding in shadows crush that along with your sanity?"  
Zexion stood abruptly.  
"Marluxia." He said calmly, all too terrifyingly calmly. "Do not make me out to be the enemy. Remember that it is people like you who we risk our lives to help."  
"And yet you handed me medications that could very well have killed me?" Marluxia replied incredulously, but he was loosing momentum. Even he would eventually have to admit that Zexion was right.  
"It would not have killed you. It was only a placebo."  
"Oh."  
Marluxia sat back, his ears flattened against his head. He would not make eye contact with Zexion, who sat down also. After a few moments of silence, Larxene let out a sigh.  
"So what happens now?"  
Everybody glanced expectantly at Zexion.  
"We leave at dawn to a private air-centre a few miles west of here. There a private jet will take us and several others to a remote location until things have settled down."  
Demyx, who was on the verge of tears, mumbled incoherently into Xigbar's chest. Larxene nodded slowly. I waited for Marluxia's reaction - be it explosive or submissive - and indeed there was one. He looked up, venom in his eyes, and formed with his lips a single syllable.  
"No."


	12. Redemption

_"No."_

---

The room exploded.  
"_What?!_"  
"Marluxia, are you _insane_?"  
"I will not cower in shame when-!"  
"There's nothing we can do!"  
"He's right. Admit it."  
"Listen!"  
"Guys..."  
"Hide if you wish, but _I_ will have no part in it!"  
"Guys! Will you please just _shut up_!"  
It was Demyx. The poor boy was crying openly now, his fists balled in horrified, abject fear. Automatically, everybody was shocked into silence. "Look," He said shakily; "Don't you think that things are bad enough even without us all turning on each other as well?"  
Everyone glared at Marluxia - the main source of disagreement - and to my surprised the actually backed down a little.  
"But I will not run."  
In the silence Larxene, too, shook her head, ignoring the piercing glare that Zexion shot her.  
"Sorry, guys. Me neither. I'm with Marluxia on this one."  
Just to prove her point, she waltzed over to sit by Marluxia, on the other side to me.  
"Xigbar?" Marluxia said, calm again, turning to the vampire. "Demyx?"  
"I'm in," Xigbar said with a lopsided grin. "But I want Demyx to go safe with Zexion."  
Demyx was quivering with what had first seemed like fear, but now I saw that it was determination.  
"I'm not going anywhere without you," He said petulantly. "I'm in."  
Marluxia, with more than half of the assembled crowd on his side, glanced expectantly at me. In fact, everybody was staring.  
"I don't know!" I blurted out honestly. Marluxia's gaze intensified. "I don't know. I never asked for any of this. I never asked to be caught up with the Unwanted or to be "in league" with Organisation XIII. I just want my old life back."  
But I knew, as Larxene's shoulders sagged a little, as Demyx's eyes became desperate, that I couldn't leave Marluxia now. Not after so long, or so much. I couldn't betray him now, whether I wanted to or not. So, melting under the heat of expectation, I added;  
"And Marluxia's."  
"So you're in?" Larxene whispered, relaying the question that was on everybody's mind. Feeling ominously like I was signing my life away, closing one door of opportunity, following a single path never to return, I nodded. The tension immediately relaxed.  
Zexion let out a sigh and stood, making for the door.  
"I see. Lexaeus? I do not believe that we can be of further use here."  
But Lexaeus didn't follow. He sat, carefully, with us, in such an open suggestion of defiance that even Marluxia looked a little surprised.  
"No," He said at length, lighting himself a cigarette. "I have waited long enough." His stony eyes flicked to Zexion and for a split second I saw in them the same bond that Marluxia and I had made, many nights ago. "Be safe," He continued, and even past his emotionless mask I saw Zexion break a little.  
"And you."  
"Wait for me on the other side," Lexaeus said gently. "I have work here to do."  
Zexion nodded, slowly, and momentarily he crossed the distance between the two of them to place upon Lexaeus' lips the lightest of kisses. Then, with a spark of fearsomeness in his eyes as their hands interlocked for a second, he spoke his final goodbyes.  
"Don't you dare die."  
Lexaeus chuckled slightly, brushing a hand across the mark on Zexion's cheek, one that mirrored the fluttering wings on his back.  
"I don't intend to."  
Moments later, Zexion was gone.

---

There were six of us left; two werewolves, two humans, a vampire and a gargoyle. Larxene was the first to speak.  
"So... now what?"  
Marluxia, apparently considering the most of his work done, yawned widely and settled down beside me, pulling a duvet over himself.  
"We sleep." He said, rolled over and within moments, apparently was.  
Demyx chuckled nervously, glancing at me like _I_ knew anything.  
"I think we should clear up the situation," I declared. "Make sure that we know what we're getting into."  
"What is there to say?" Marluxia mumbled sleepily. "The Organisation controls the minds of the humans, convincing them that the Unwanted are monsters. Meanwhile, a few Unwanted have worked their way into the Organisation under the codename Organisation XIII - and rendered themselves useless in the process. So, they are running."  
"From what?"  
"From the Organisation. One of Organisation XIII's members was discovered, remember?"  
"Oh. Right. So what can we do?"  
"My guess," Marluxia said, "Is that membership of the Organisation isn't extensive. Their biggest weapon is normal humans' preconceptions about the Unwanted. So, we change that."  
"How?" I asked helplessly. "There's just six of us. Facing a population of eight billion or more."  
Marluxia rolled over to glare at me, and though I was nervously biting my lip I held my ground. Eventually he sighed, pulling me down with him.  
"I'm still working on that part."

---

Early the next morning, there was a sharp, businesslike rap on the door, jerking us all from a restless, uneasy sleep. I shushed everybody into the furthest corner of the kitchen as, fearing the worst, approached the door to open it a crack.  
"Vexen Carlisle?"  
Outside were a number of smartly dressed men with handsfree headsets and briefcases, waiting in a line to a row of equally smart black cars. The nearest to me, a man with neatly cropped black hair and a red tie, easily pushed the door wide open, forcing me to dance around him a little.  
"Yes?"  
"You are under arrest for contempt and treason of the law."  
Frowning at the men, I bit my lip - if only to keep myself from trembling. Was this what had happened to Xigbar when _they_ had come for him?  
"I haven't done anything wrong."  
"You are conspiring against the Organisation, Mr Carlisle. Don't try to pretend that you don't know what I'm talking about."  
"That's Dr Carlisle to you," I huffed, dully recognising that that was a pretty issue compared to what was happening, but if they were going to kill me or worse, they could at least get my title right.  
The man didn't appear to be impressed by my correction.  
"We can do this one of two ways, _Dr_ Carlisle-"  
"_Thank_ you."  
"- The easy way, or the hard way."  
I realised that a lot of the men had guns.  
"You can't kill me," I immediately blurted out. "You can't kill me, I'm a human."  
"Not for much longer, Dr Carlisle."  
I opened my mouth to protest, otherwise frozen to the floor, when suddenly a huge ball of brown fur flew past me with a roar, and took out a good number of the assembled men simply by landing on them. As I stood, shocked and surprised, Marluxia grabbed my arm, dragging me out to the back.  
"Lexaeus will take care of them. Come on!"  
Bullets were flying, but Lexaeus didn't seem concerned by them in the slightest as he tore through the men of the Organisation with ease. It was almost spellbinding, the grace in which his enormous transformed body moved, all rippling muscle and bared fangs. Compared to Lexaeus', Marluxia's wolf form was practically a runt.  
I was glad to be running away from him, even if he was on our side, as we dashed through the kitchen were Larxene was pulling out all the stashes of money I thought I'd hidden so well from her and Xigbar and Demyx were grabbing all the food they could lay their hands on. Then we were in the garden, scrambling with varying degrees of difficulty over the fence (I practically had to be thrown over by Marluxia) and into the alleyway behind where, for a few precious moments, we hid. Police sirens were wailing somewhere, and screams and gunshots echoed loudly from the other side of the house.  
I nearly had a heart attack when they stopped, just like that, a few minutes later. But Marluxia was prepared; he stood abruptly and grabbed my arm just as Lexaeus came crashing through the fence and skidded to a halt, growling something that only Marluxia understood before laying down, almost too big for the alleyway.  
"Climb on," Marluxia instructed, pulling something out of his pocket - a small test tube of a slightly translucent red liquid. "Quickly!"  
Larxene grabbed a handful of fur and hoisted herself up, pulling me up with her. Xigbar soon followed as Demyx unfurled his wings, ready for flight. I held out a hand for Marluxia, but he waved me away.  
"I've always wanted to do this," He said, and pulled away the cap of the tube, downing its contents in one go then methodically pulling off his clothes. He was naked for perhaps four or five seconds, when suddenly in his place stood once again stood the terrifying monster from before.  
"Let's go."  
We all clung for dear life as Lexaeus launched himself down the alleyway, Marluxia close behind. The pink haired man - well, wolf now - looked better than that full moon that had left both of us scarred. He was less of a horrifying, mutated halfbreed, far more _wolf_ than _man_, with pink fur that rippled in the early morning sunlight, and flinty blue eyes that burned not with insanity but passion.  
We burst out into the main road where there were police cars waiting, and Marluxia and Lexaeus cleared them with ease. Sirens wailing, they spun to chase us but Marluxia was ready, crashing his body into the side of one hard enough to make it spin. The roof crumpled, the windows shattering like some old time car chase in a movie. Briefly, I wondered just how much adrenaline was storming through Marluxia's body.  
We were running at full speed when we turned onto the grassy bank at the side of the motorway; Marluxia drew up alongside Lexaeus and glared urgently at me.  
"Jump!"  
"What?" I cried above the roar of the wind.  
"Jump onto my back!"  
_For goodness' sake_, I thought as I edged to the cliff of fur where Lexaeus' back stopped; _I'm nearly thirty. I'm too old to be jumping onto werewolves and being on the run from mysterious conspiracy groups._  
And then I wondered how my adrenaline was pumping through _me_ as I launched myself onto Marluxia's back, clinging to his fur as I scrambled into a more balanced position. Larxene, still on Lexaeus, cheered loudly and I rolled my eyes. This was no time for celebration; the Organisation was still hard on our heels, and Marluxia and Lexaeus couldn't keep up this pace forever. But I couldn't deny that I was just as excited as we veered into a thicket of tall trees, and a moment later came crashing out to run alongside a railway track. In the distance, I spotted a train, easily powering along at four or five times the speed we were. The sirens were still clearly audible, not so far away. Demyx was overhead, one moment flying straight, the next spiralling to avoid the spray of bullets as a four by four flew over the hill to chase us down.  
"Get down!"  
I pressed myself into Marluxia's fur - noting how wonderfully familiar that canine scent was - as the car drew terrifyingly close but suddenly there was a collision and it toppled, twisting metal screaming from the strain, down across the railway track and burst into flames in a rut beside it. I dared to glance back and there was Demyx, bleeding and beating his way back up into the air.  
"_Demyx!_" Xigbar screamed, but then the train arrived and Lexaeus and Marluxia took a flying leap at it and crashed heavily onto the metal roof. We all rolled off into a heap, clinging to the ventilation domes as the train swerved onto a corner. For a few terrifying seconds I thought I was going to fall, but then Demyx was standing by me with stony ease, grinning despite his numerous injuries. I glanced at the others; Larxene had been skimmed by a bullet and Lexaeus and Marluxia - now in human form - seemed to be peppered with holes, but thankfully still in one piece.  
"Fuck," Marluxia murmured as he crawled over to sit with the rest of us on the train. "Fuck _yes_."  
He reached weakly up - he looked _exhausted_ - and planted a kiss somewhere close to but not quite on my mouth, and then flopped forwards into blissful slumber.  
"Marluxia!"  
"He'll be fine," Lexaeus rumbled. "Intentional transformation is tiring even for a True werewolf, let alone him."  
My fingers found that soft patch of fur behind Marluxia's ears of their own accord as we settled down on the roof of the carriage.  
"So where are we going?"  
Demyx came over to sit with us, completely unconcerned by the wind.  
"This train's headed for London, so I guess there. We should move down to the back of the train," He added; "There's a straight up ahead where this train's probably gonna speed up a lot. You could get blown off."  
We hurried down the length of the train to where there was a platform and a small amount of railing, and settled ourselves down in some sort of messy heap.  
"Everybody alive?"  
"I think so."  
"Awesome."  
Everybody was celebrating like it was a good thing that we'd lost our house, the only safe base we had in the world, along with all our clothes, medical supplies, valuables and God knew what else. All we had was each other now, and whatever money Larxene had managed to stuff down her pants before we left.  
I was terrified.


	13. Reaction

As the train approached the sprawling suburbs surrounding London, we slid like an inky blotch onto the track, slinking away into the nearest town. Presently, hiding in an alleyway, we came across a problem. Lexaeus had been prepared, with a lightweight change of clothing which he slipped into as soon as we stopped, but Marluxia was stark naked.  
"Vexen. Give me your trousers."  
"What? No!"  
"Well, your boxers, at least. Or do you want me to stay naked?"  
I considered this.  
"Fine. But nobody look at me,"  
"Vexen," Larxene drawled as she obediently turned away, "Nobody _wants_ to look. Except Marluxia, and he's seen it all before."  
I grudgingly pulled away the bottom half of my clothes, shoving my boxers quickly in Marluxia's direction before replacing my jeans.  
"Thanks."  
I shifted uncomfortably and sat down on a fairly clean step.  
"So now what?"  
Marluxia say down beside me, eyes distant in that way that always meant he was formulating a plan.  
"We'll have to act fast," he said at length as everybody crowded around him, drawn in my his pensive charisma. "The Organisation won't be lost to our trail for long. We need to hit them right at their core - and that's the general public."  
Xigbar was the first to speak, with one word easily voicing all our thoughts.  
"How?"  
Marluxia sighed heavily, looking down at his hands, still pale from the physical exertion of transforming earlier, before the train.  
"I don't know," He admitted, and then, seeing everybody else's crestfallen expressions, quickly added - "Yet."  
For a while, we all contemplated this.  
"We'll need a car," Larxene said eventually, looking over our ragged group. "We'll need a car, that way we can run faster from the Organisation."  
"From where?" Lexaeus asked evenly, without malice or discouragement. Larxene shrugged amiably enough.  
"We nick one?"  
I opened my mouth to protest but she shot me such a devious look that suddenly I didn't feel so inclined to do so any more.  
"I know for a fact that you used to break into cars when we were kids," She said triumphantly, pointing a gleefully accusing finger.  
"Oh, come on!" I exclaimed at everybody who was suddenly staring. "It was only for a joke. I never actually drove them anywhere, I just used to turn the radios on so that the batteries would run down."  
Lexaeus raised his eyebrows a little. Marluxia had his mouth hanging open like a shell shocked goldfish. Xigbar was grinning like a maniac.  
"Wow. Vex. I'm totally seeing you in a whole new light."  
"Anyway," I huffed, "It was a long time ago. The locks are probably harder to crack nowadays."  
"But you'd give it a go?" Marluxia asked in a voice that couldn't be argued with. I let out a long-suffering sigh.  
"Fine. But we wait until evening, at least."  
Xigbar clapped me resolutely in the back.  
"I always knew we could make a criminal out of you, Vexen!"  
"Well, I've already been arrested," I muttered, already peeking out of the alleyway to see if there were any cars that looked both drivable and easy to break into. Larxene joined me, instantly pointing.  
"That one! The Mercedes."  
"No way!" I exclaimed, rolling my eyes. "We can't pick one that'll have security installed in a million different ingenious ways. We should choose one that does what we want, but no more."  
"You're about to hijack a car," Larxene groaned. "You might as well go all the way and nick a nice one."

---

How had I got myself into this, I wondered as I used one of Larxene's hairpins and an odd paper clip that had been hanging around in my pocket to break open the lock on the Mercedes as night fell. I had to admit, though, that it was a nice car - a cheetah of the mechanical world - and it only took me five minutes to pop the driver's door open. I held up my hand for the others to wait, and slipped inside. The dashboard was like your average household computer. And asking for my fingerprints.  
Like hell, I muttered silently to it, and reached up underneath into its gut to pull randomly at the first wires my fingers came into contact with. The computer short circuited magnificently, and three more wires later the alarm stopped threatening to ring, too.  
"Get in,"  
"Can't I drive?"  
"_No_."  
I rummaged around until I found the wires to jump start the car without need of a key, and then reversed carefully out of the neat privet drive into the last slipstream of rush hour traffic.  
"Where to?"  
Marluxia, hogging the passenger seat, ran his fingertips over the disconnected touch screen by the dashboard as the others crammed themselves into the back.  
"Just take us somewhere we can stay until morning."  
I nodded, and drove off into the night.

---

We found a secluded enough old gravel car park by a footpath, populated by only a broken-down old caravan and a picnic bench, and lowered the seats as far down into the boot as we could, sprawling out in a messy heap to sleep. Tomorrow, I thought dully as Marluxia partitioned me off for himself, we'd all look like hell. But where else did we have to go?  
I was just falling asleep when there was a quiet _poomf_, and beside us Lexaeus became a towering, living blanket and radiator who everybody except Marluxia immediately cuddled up to. It was sort of cute, except he was a werewolf and we were on the run and tomorrow-  
"Vexen?"  
Marluxia was whispering my name, so quietly that I could barely even hear him a foot or so away.  
"What is it?"  
I heard in the gloom the click of a door being levered open.  
"I want to talk to you for a minute."  
Marluxia slipped outside, dragging me with him where he settled down onto the picnic table. I sat next to him, leaning ever so slightly against his warmer body in an action if not affectionate just... companionable. In return, he looped an arm loosely around my shoulders, hesitating for a few minutes before speaking into the clear night air.  
"Vexen... I'm scared."  
I was silent for a while, and finally when I replied it was incredulous, like I couldn't believe what I'd just heard.  
"You?"  
"I don't know if I can do this," Marluxia admitted quietly. "I don't know _what_ I can do. Damn it, I've been thinking about this moment for months. You'd have thought that I'd have come up with one decent idea by now."  
I shook my head, reaching up to stroke Marluxia's soft, slightly bedraggled hair.  
"But you're the one leading all of this." I mumbled. "You can't be scared."  
"I _am_," Marluxia insisted, and he sounded angry at himself for his weakness. "I am, Vexen. I'm terrified. I've always been ready to die what I believe in - but it isn't just me any more. There's Xigbar and Demyx, Larxene, and Lexaeus-" He paused a moment, breathing shakily in and out - "There's _you_. I couldn't forgive myself if I got you killed."  
I smiled inwardly, leaning over to place a kiss to Marluxia's down-turned lips.  
"Don't worry about me," I whispered. "I won't die."  
"Why not?" Marluxia asked, shaking his head as another hand found its way to my body, resting ever so lightly on my hip. "You might be human now, but-"  
I found my smile widening in the darkness, a mad little grin of somebody realising quite suddenly that, long ago, they'd completely and utterly lost their mind.  
"I won't die." I promised. "You know why? Because I'm a coward. I run from everything. I tried to run from you, too, except you wouldn't let me. And I'll keep running. You don't have to worry about me. I can always run."  
"Long legs, huh," Marluxia murmured affectionately, a flickering grin settling on his own lips. I laughed.  
"Yeah. Long legs."  
We were silent again for a while, foreheads resting against each other, and hands gently finding their own crevices in the curves of hips and backs. Eventually it was Marluxia who moved first, straddling me with a kiss both gentle and needy.  
"I love you," He whispered, inexplicably warm hands finding their way inside my shirt. "For whatever it's worth."  
"It's worth a lot," I promised, craning my neck to be just a little closer, like a few short millimetres would make all the difference in this crazy world. And suddenly I felt so small, so minute on a planet too large for me, with a problem I could barely even comprehend, let alone solve, with nothing bar a distinct lack of underwear, a gorgeous werewolf lover and a stolen Mercedes parked and sleeping a few yards and a million miles away.  
When we pulled away Marluxia rested himself heavily on my legs, and curled up close to me because, I supposed, that kind of weakness was allowed when nobody was looking. And, a few minutes later, he spoke first.  
"What can we do?"  
"You'll think of something," I said.  
"I won't." Marluxia hissed, angry again. "I can't. I can't figure out how just six people can convince a billion and more that the Unwanted aren't monsters."  
For a while I contemplated this.  
"Well... it's not like we're the only ones," I eventually mused out loud, causing Marluxia to raise his head and accidentally knock my chin a little. He kissed it better as, piece by piece, a thought formulated in my mind. "Think about it. There must be hundreds if not thousands of other Marked out there who would give anything to be free again. All we need to do is _gather_ them..."  
"... Into once place," Marluxia continued, thinking along the same line as I was. "We gather them all together and just sit down. We just have to _exist_ to let people know that we're not the monsters that the Organisation so desperately wants them to believe we are. If we could gather enough support-"  
"You could," I said, trying not to sound jealous of Marluxia's ability to simply connect to people.  
"_We_ could," Marluxia corrected. "Together."  
I chuckled abruptly.  
"For whatever it's worth."  
We didn't return to the car for some time, but I figured that we needed one last moment together and alone before everything went to hell.

---

We woke by knocking each other with tangled body parts as we attempted to stretch into some position more comfortable, all groaning and stiff from sleeping so awkwardly.  
"I told you a people carrier would have been more practical," I huffed as with nothing better to do we climbed under our seatbelts and set off again down the road. In the back, Larxene was counting our money - we had a little under five hundred pounds, and that wasn't much.  
"If I had my credit card," I moaned, "Then we could have taken out all the money in my account."  
There was a little giggle from behind me and moments later something light bounced off the back of my head. Larxene, the sneaky little bitch, had thought to steal my wallet. For a few moments, I almost loved her.  
We drew up in a car park somewhere; Larxene and I left the others in the car and ran to the nearest open café, buying as much food as we could carry. Nobody had eaten since yesterday morning and as we spilled our collection of takeaway packages onto the back seat of the car I felt like Marluxia, ravenously devouring the cheap, plasticky food. Larxene bought a change of clothes for Marluxia, too, and finally I was allowed my boxers back as he slipped into the just-a-little-too-tight outfit.  
Once we had eaten and were at least in a slightly better mood, Marluxia spoke.  
"I have a plan," He said, picking crumbs from the last of the newspaper parcels. "With just the six of us, we can't change anything. But-" He paused dramatically, something I'd never have thought to do - "We're not the only ones. All we need to do is find the other Unwanted like us, and bring them into our cause."  
I glanced over my shoulder to see Xigbar make a little _O_ of realisation with his mouth, and Demyx lying on his lap suddenly grin.  
"We'll have to set a date and location," Marluxia continued. "I'm thinking Central London, two new moons from now. It'll give us plenty of time to prepare; if we get other Marked to spread the word we could potentially have hundreds of people with us."  
"What are we to do?" Lexaeus asked. His expression was unreadable.  
Marluxia smiled inwardly.  
"Nothing."  
"Wow." Larxene said blankly. "Sounds brilliant."  
"It is!" Marluxia exclaimed, his eyes lighting up in a way that was usually reserved for when he was in bed with me. "That's precisely it! We find a place big enough to hold everybody who arrives. Somewhere public where everybody can see. We sit down, and we don't move until they recognise that we're not murderers, but human beings just like the rest of you."  
"No gunning anybody down?" Xigbar said, sounding distinctly like he was trying not to sound disappointed.  
"No," Marluxia said firmly. He paused for effect, then continued. "What has the Organisation been doing, for hundreds of years? _Gunning us down_. We have to prove that we're better than them - which means no violence whatsoever. An outburst would ruin the entire protest."  
Xigbar nodded thoughtfully and backed down, leaving Marluxia to continue.  
"So we'll sit. Get food and medical supplies - Vexen, Larxene, you're going to be busy."  
"We don't have enough money to feed hundreds of people," I argued. Larxene growled in the back of her throat and punched my shoulder.  
"Shut up, you Scrooge. Even when we're down to our very last penny, we'll pay."  
Marluxia nodded, satisfied.  
"And hygiene. We'll set a place for people to do their business. Depending on the numbers that arrive."  
Slowly, painstakingly slowly, the pieces of out plan began to come together. We'd travel around the country in the Mercedes, or failing that, a train or Lexaeus' back - and Marluxia would work his magic with the local Unwanted population. Any who'd follow us would be sent to gather more support - as many Marked as possible - and meet two new moons from now in Trafalgar Square by the crumbling lion statues, and sit. Block up the roads, fill the streets, jam porches and doorways. We weren't sure how much support we'd get but we were hoping on a thousand. With the help of Larxene's phone calculator, Marluxia set the total Marked population of the UK alone at as much as fifty times that amount.  
We set off in the early afternoon, travelling north on the way to the first city - across the country to Birmingham. Rather than risk prying eyes on the motorway, we drove down the side roads and through the thick pockets of preserved countryside. To my surprise, I kept noticing out of the corner of my eye flashes of movement amongst the trees surrounding us - Marked.  
"They know we're here," Lexaeus said. "Pull over."  
There was a whole tribe of gargoyles hiding in primitive shanty huts in the forest. All bar a select few were entirely naked, and most were in bad health. One, tall and dark with cropped black hair, stepped forwards, aiming a sharpened stick neatly in my face.  
"What is your purpose, human?"  
I glanced nervously at Marluxia and he nodded at me, urging me to reply and reply swiftly. He didn't understand my nervous response to such sudden pressure - he was too confident. Me? I was scared.  
"I'm working for the freedom of the Unwanted."  
The gargoyle didn't look entirely convinced, but seeing Larxene and I outnumbered by Marked chose to lower his makeshift spear. I quickly pushed Marluxia forwards to take my place.  
"You speak with him."  
Marluxia glanced over at the assembled gargoyles, sizing up his challenge, and cleared his throat.  
"I am planning a revolution."  
The gargoyle scoffed disbelievingly.  
"You and five other people?"  
"Maybe if you would care to join the cause, we could make that six," Marluxia smoothly replied, boldly taking a step forwards. "Or fifty-six."  
I was amazed that Marluxia wasn't intimidated by this much larger, stronger man. But they were dancing an intricate ritual of unspoken body language - I was left confused but Marluxia easily navigated the battlefield with just the right demeanour, a mix of necessary confidence and due respect, hands outstretched in a sign of simple peace.  
"What is your plan?" The chief of the gargoyles asked. "I see no firearms. You cannot possibly hope to defeat the Organisation alone."  
"I am calling a meeting," Marluxia said. His eyes locked onto the strangers' and did not stray.  
"Oh?"  
"In London, Trafalgar Square. Two new moons from now. There will be no fighting. No violence. We shall not move until the government agrees to discuss terms."  
The gargoyle, tail flicking idly, considered this at length.  
"Or until we are all gunned down."  
"Then at least when we die, we will have died with honour!" Marluxia exploded, turning his attention to the other gargoyles who were hanging uncertainly around the clearing. He strode between them, capturing the attention of every single one. "We will have died with a clear conscience that we were doing what is _right_, with the words of freedom on our lips! Would you rather slink in shadows, waiting for illness, hunters or starvation to drag you down? Do you _want_ to be nothing more than animals for your entire lives? _Forgotten_?"  
He paused and let this sink in, then continued more quietly; "Or do you want to be _heroes_? Remembered for your _courage_-" He clenched his fist in a sign of open defiance, directing each sentence at a new spellbound gargoyle - "For your refusal to ever give in? Our names - our cause - will go down in history, friends. Whether or not we succeed, we will be _remembered_. We will lay the foundations for a better future, be it on our generation, or the next, or a hundred years from now. Things will change! And it starts-" He plucked out one scrawny gargoyle, pressing a hand to his chest. "It all starts _here_."  
Finished, Marluxia returned to us and looked on at his audience with an expectant expression. It was a young gargoyle with what looked to be some disease on his stony skin who stepped forwards first.  
"Hell, I'm going to die soon anyway. I'm in."  
More joined him, the young and boisterous males first - then the girls, and one by one the adults. None of them were of any great age - I was probably the oldest one there. The reason - they simply wouldn't survive that long.  
As more people stepped forwards, Marluxia's smile seemed to widen more and more. Finally even the chief was forced through sheer pressure from his fellows to agree to the plan.  
"Fine. We will join you."  
Marluxia nodded, holding out a hand which was enclosed in a firm hand shake.  
"Thank you." He said, gazing over every one of the gargoyles. "Your commitment will not be in vain. Two new moons in Trafalgar Square - go out to the other settlements in this area, gather as many Unwanted as you can. But remember - no violence. This is the most important thing. No fighting. No attacks. No weapons. We are a peaceful people, are we not? We do not want more deaths to add to the crimes set against our kind."  
The chief nodded as we made our way back to the car.  
"You are a brave man indeed, stranger."  
Marluxia turned back and smiled a little as his hand found mine.  
"One of us has to be."


	14. Revolution

We found three more settlements before nightfall in Birmingham, but they were only small groups, families on the road or travelling groups in passing. I was amazed at this secret, underground world of the Unwanted - they survived on the waste of the human world, trading with less reputable humans in return for food or safe passage between cities. A couple we met had an old caravan in which they travelled, offering services unique to their species to the precious few who saw in the Marked an advantage, not just a monster. But it was at the heart of the city that we met our true arena.  
Marluxia, instead of speaking to small groups who would spread the word, decided to call together a meeting of all the Unwanted in the surrounding area. An assembly of sorts, in a park that was always deserted after nightfall. It was there, armed with myriads of carrier bags containing food and medical supplies for those who needed it, that we all waited for the local population to slink and slide in.  
I had never seen so many Unwanted gathered in one place before. There must have been three, maybe four hundred people. Demyx and Xigbar were busily distributing food, offering painkillers to some who'd all too recently received injuries from hunts. Even Larxene was doing her part, sitting everyone down and quietening them for Marluxia's meeting.  
I turned to the man as everyone eventually fell silent. His fists were clenched tightly, and I wrapped my fingers around them.  
"You can do this."  
He rolled his eyes at me, shrugging to relax tense muscles.  
"_We_ can."  
He stepped up onto the wall which became his stage, overlooking the seated Marked until he held the attention of every one.  
"Friends," He said, and the night breeze carried his voice into the crowd. "I am planning a revolution."  
There was a questioning silence, too silent. Unperturbed, Marluxia continued.  
"For too long, we have been oppressed!" He yelled, hands held open. "We have been denied the rights we deserve, we have been hunted down like nothing more than animals rather than the honourable human beings that we once were. We have been wronged!"  
"What can we do?" Somebody called from the crowd. "The whole world is against us. The humans outnumber us a hundred to one. We can't beat them."  
"On the contrary." Marluxia said without skipping a beat. He'd been planning this, I realised, ever since that first night on the picnic table. Planning every word, every comeback and response. "Some of you may have heard of the Organisation. They are a group who control the world's governments, the people responsible for the public's misconceptions of the Unwanted. Take them out - and nothing stands in the way of justice."  
"Do you have weapons?" Another stranger asked. Marluxia hissed a little in the back of his throat.  
"No. We will not use violence."  
The crowd erupted into fits of rage and anger. I suddenly realised that there was one thing they wanted and one thing alone - revenge. Not justice as Marluxia wished and preached. Glorious, bloody revenge. People began to stand, the calls growing louder, fists punching the air and feet stamping onto the ground. If I'd been in Marluxia's place, I would have given up. But he would do no such thing.  
"Are you _stupid_?" He screamed, so loud and so piercing that the calls were hushed so instantly it was like somebody had muted the world. "Are you so blinded by hate that you think the only way to win is to fall as low as the humans who have destroyed our kind for centuries?"  
Silence again. Larxene, standing next to me, took my hand, and only then did I realise that I was shaking. Marluxia's plan needed these people - and if all that happened was a violent uprising, the Unwanted would never be freed.  
"Can't you see?" Marluxia was continuing, more quietly - forcing people to listen. "Can't you see that no matter how many humans you try to tear down, more will only stand in their place? That with every drop of blood you shed, you're only proving them _right_?"  
Murmurs ran through the crowd.  
"What else can we do?"  
"I am calling a meeting," Marluxia answered. "Two new moons from now, in Trafalgar Square in London. No longer will the Marked hide in shadows - we will come out, as one, into the daylight - and prove once and for all that we are not monsters."  
"How?"  
"By doing nothing."  
I could hear the wind whistling softly in the trees, the silence of darkness crushing. When Marluxia spoke again, I jumped.  
"_We are not monsters!_"  
_We are not monsters, we are not monsters, we are not monsters_, ran the echoes in the crowd.  
"_We are not murderers!_"  
_We are not murderers, we are not murderers, we are not murderers_. The chants rose above the high city skyscrapers into the clear sky.  
"_We are the Unwanted, and we will make them hear us out!_!"  
"Hear us out!"  
"Hear us out!"  
It was a long time before the Marked died down, folding back into cross-legs on the grassy floor, Marluxia sitting with them and above them on the wall.  
"Two new moons," He said to them. "In two new moons, we will make our stand. We will stay in Trafalgar for as long as it takes - until they give us the freedom we deserve. Go-! Tell any you meet, bring them to our cause. But remember-" And Marluxia couldn't seem to stress this enough - "Bring no weapons. Harm nobody. We are _not_ murderers."  
"We are not murderers!" The crowd echoed, punching the air with their fists again. "We are not monsters! We are not murderers! We're the Unwanted - _hear us out_!"

* * *

We stayed in the city all night, Marluxia busying himself with speaking to every individual group, sure to make his intentions perfectly clear. But it wasn't long before his position at the centre of attention was robbed by the hum of an old guitar and the murmur of voices in rhythm. Demyx, with a group of Unwanted gathered around him - was joining the revolution in his own way - through song.  
"Think about it," He said as Marluxia marched over and demanded to know what he was doing. "What's more human than music? It's ingrained into our culture right back to the dawn of civilisation. We have songs - there's no way they can deny that we're people."  
"_Birds_ have songs," Marluxia scoffed.  
"Yeah, but sharks and snakes and tigers don't, do they?"  
"I suppose not."  
Demyx began to sing, strumming chords on his guitar to guide the people who joined him in a shaky, rather uncertain first rendition of a song that suddenly made me realise that maybe music really _could_ change the destinies of nations.  
"_With hearts a-breaking we won't step aside,  
We'll keep on fighting till you take our lives;  
No longer will we stand in the shadows of doubt-  
We're the Unwanted, hear us out!_"  
Demyx sang it again, more people joining in as they learned by ear the words.  
"See?" He said triumphantly. "People will listen to us. We'll make them listen, because when we sing it, it'll be catchy! Ne-aawh!"  
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Xigbar turn away.

* * *

Glasgow, December, rain sweeping over the Scottish highlands like an invasion of marching, dank soldiers so cold that a degree lower and they'd be fluffy snow. Open plains, heather and bracken flattened for beds. A few tents, pitched in daytime's foggy half-light, for the sick and wounded.  
There were a lot of them.  
Three days ago, we stopped walking and started running. The Organisation knew. More murders of the undercover spies of Organisation XIII came through in the whispering Unwanted grapevine, and with each one Lexaeus' face grew a little darker, his movements a little more autonomous. An angel? Had anybody heard news of an angel? No?  
The dream of freedom was becoming a nightmare. Countless Unwanted were laying down their lives for the cause, trying in vain to reach Trafalgar. The nights were drawing in. Just a few weeks to go, now.  
Still, motion set and too late to be turned back, Marluxia preached to the hoards of Unwanted that risked everything to see him. He seemed to instil in them some kind of energy, a burning desire for freedom, no matter the cost.  
But he was growing frail.  
I don't know when, exactly, it began, but one night as we settled in hiding ready for dawn, I saw in his eyes an empty, haunted look beneath his ever-determined spark. I sought to console him, pulling him to the edge of the clearing that we had found to sleep in.  
"Are you alright?"  
He curled up in my arms like I was scaffolding and nodded distantly.  
"Yeah."  
"Are you sure?" I pressed. He didn't sound convinced. And if I'd learned anything about Marluxia in the time we'd been together, it was that he hated ever succumbing to weakness.  
"I'm tired," He admitted eventually. I pulled him down into a pile of limbs and fur and held him close. But it was hard to sleep with winter's chill and death breathing down our necks. A week later and death had a name - the Organisation.  
"They know."  
"They know."  
"They _know_."  
Marluxia stopped sleeping altogether. He'd keep watch all night with tired eyes, doze restlessly in the car until that was shot down in a chase too reminiscent of the classic action movies I loved as a kid. His insatiable appetite diminished, disappeared.  
Glasgow, December, two hundred or more of the Marked, struggling to pitch tents in the driving rain. The ground was like slush. All energy had long since been spent. Nothing was left but grim determination, and the bitter, remorseless cold.  
"How many people can you fit into a pod for four?"  
"Four?"  
"No. Thirteen."  
It was midnight and Marluxia had directed some of the little ones into one of the drier compartments of a tent set up in haste, and there they lay, most of them naked and all of them muddy, in a heap of blankets and spare clothes. Larxene had crawled in with them and they clung to her with skinny arms and tattered wings. The oldest of them was eleven, twelve perhaps? It was heartbreaking. These were children so young they barely knew any different to a life on the run; children with the tattoos of the Unwanted heartlessly emblazoned on their cheeks.  
I'd never pegged Larxene for the maternal type, but here she was telling them bedtime stories and plaiting their hair until exhausted, they fell asleep, fists still clenched with a primitive desperation to Larxene's clothes and hair. Marluxia and I left her there to arrange homes for the night for the others. Tomorrow, we'd be running again. More would join the group as we would move south to more densely populated parts. Here, safety in numbers was non-existent. Perhaps small packs of Unwanted could percolate through the Organisation's net to Trafalgar, but this many? I had my doubts.  
Larxene had asked if she could keep the children that clustered lovingly around her knees. Marluxia had said nothing, but the look in his eyes spoke louder than words. There was no point getting attached - the chances that they'd all survive the revolution looked slim.  
The next morning, we struck the tents and moved on. Somehow everybody crawled from blissful slumber to another day of aching muscles and hard, physical work. Demyx pulled them through. It was just a murmur but you could feel it in the air; somewhere in the distance the strum of the old guitar and a whispering song that darted back and forth, back and forth, carrying all our hopes and dreams on a melodious harmony above our hearts and untouchable in the sky.  
From now on, we didn't dare use even the country lanes. Small groups of the fitter Unwanted ran ahead to clear safe passage for the old, young, weak and wounded. The casualties were still rising, and every day more fell by the wayside. We gave them as honourable funerals as we could but there was no time. We had to keep beneath the Organisation's radar, and that meant moving swiftly.  
"The Organisation is still running a covert operation," Marluxia told me as clouds finally gave way to sunlight as we crossed the border into England. "It's the one thing keeping us alive. They can't be seen either."  
I looked around at the Marked that surrounded us. Lexaeus was in wolf form a little way away, carrying anyone who couldn't walk on his back. Larxene was chivvying along her children with a weary half-enthusiasm. Demyx and Xigbar were somewhere.  
"I supposed that's one thing we've got."  
Marluxia nodded.  
"Hm."  
D'you think that it'll get easier once we reach Trafalgar?"  
Marluxia glanced at me. Moments later, I felt his hand brush mine and I latched onto his fingers, held them tight.  
"For us, maybe."

* * *

The days began to blur.  
Like I'd predicted, more Marked - and even a few sympathetic humans - arrived wanting a safe route to Trafalgar. Many small groups Marluxia turned away; it was only the ones in desperate need of security that were allowed to join our ranks. But although we only saw them fleetingly, those lively gangs were like a breath of fresh air to our downtrodden spirits. They still laughed; they embraced Demyx's songs and played with Larxene's children - for them the revolution was a matter fitting for such frivolities, a celebration instead of a matter of life or death. Their optimism seemed like the only thing keeping our feet moving.  
I forgot when I last saw Marluxia smile.  
He was carrying the weight of the revolution on his shoulders and I was too afraid that one day, he'd snap. I tried coaxing him into bed the night we found a deserted warehouse to keep out the worst of the elements, but he only slept fitfully. He refused to eat, giving up all his food to those who needed it more.  
"It doesn't matter if I die," He said as we approached the outskirts of the London suburbs some time after New Year. "These are the people that matter the most. These are the people that will free the Unwanted."  
Cold and tired and grouchy, I furiously pulled him aside and kissed him blue.  
"You matter to _me_," I told him. "You matter to me more than anything. Do what you like but for God's sake, don't you dare ever forget that."  
He looked at me with eyes I remembered somewhere from a distant past, and pulled me close. Even through a thick winter jumper and someone's second hand cagoule, I swore I could feel his heartbeat.  
"I love you, Vexen."  
I felt myself smile.  
"I love you too."  
We pressed on.

* * *

Trafalgar Square, January.  
We arrived at one in the morning and collected around the signature lions like ink swirling in water, covert and silent. Larxene and I dragged ourselves to a twenty-four hour supermarket and bought all the food we could afford, and shared it out amongst our numbers. Marluxia set to work organising small groups, laying out ground sheets and blankets to dry while the sky was clear. I forced him to eat something, at the very least, and with enough kisses he eventually complied.  
More began to arrive.  
"This is it," Marluxia whispered to me as he disappeared to welcome maybe a hundred vampires hiding under thick, heavy clothes in anticipation of the sun, soon to rise. I took my leave and found Larxene with her clutch of children. There were only nine left now. I didn't ask why.  
"Hey."  
She'd found clothes for them, somewhere or other, and they hung loosely off their tiny bones as they ran and jumped beside her, laughing so innocently like their very lives weren't in danger.  
"Crazy, isn't it?" Larxene said. "One minute I'm running circles around idiots like Axel, the next I'm babysitting these little tyrants."  
I laughed, prising a hungry little werewolf from my leg.  
"I guess there's hope for you yet."  
She punched me in the shoulder. I supposed I deserved it.  
More and more Unwanted came and Marluxia worked endlessly through the small hours of the morning to settle and organise them. But for every pair that arrived, there was another lying in a ditch somewhere, perished in the cold or pumped full of lead. Dozens were injured, some fatally. Demyx sang to them as they passed, and Lexaeus ferried their bodies out to the sea where he laid them to rest.  
Eventually, dawn began to break on a thousand or more Marked lining the square. They bundled on steps, leaned against the fountains, climbed over the lions still proudly guarding a pillar that had long since fallen to time.  
I looked for Marluxia and found him on one of the four plinths, cross-legged and brooding.  
"Marluxia."  
He glanced up at me and quickly looked away. His eyes were sunken and red. So I sat with him and wrapped a comforting arm around his shoulder.  
"What's wrong?"  
He sighed heavily, and even if he didn't embrace me in return, his tail discretely wrapped itself around my back.  
"What am I doing." He said. It wasn't even a question.  
"You're freeing the Unwanted," I replied, squeezing his shoulder a little. His tone of voice was too uncertain for the leader of this revolution, and it scared me.  
"Hardly," He scoffed derisively.  
"You're making a stand," I insisted. "You're proving that the Unwanted are people and deserve rights like the rest of us. Even if this doesn't explicitly change anything, you've started the revolution."  
"Revolution," Marluxia echoed despondently. He gestured to the groups down in the square. More were arriving by the minute, finding places to slot in amongst the original crowd. "This isn't a _revolution_."  
"What is it, then?" I hardly dared to ask. Marluxia's lips formed a sneer.  
"It's going to be a _massacre_."  
My stomach curled and my mind could form no words.  
"What do you think is going to happen?" Marluxia exclaimed, gesturing wildly. "What did any of us expect? A tea party in the Houses of Parliament? I've led these people to their _deaths_, Vexen. Nobody can escape the clutches of the Organisation alive. I'm a _murderer_."  
Fear flowered in my gut. If Marluxia, the one person who we were relying on to stand strong no matter what, was loosing faith, what hope was there for the rest of us?  
"You're not," I whispered, wondering when I'd become the unwaveringly courageous half of our relationship. "Marluxia, wasn't it you who said that it would be better to die with honour than live hiding in shadows?"  
Marluxia eventually gave in and pulled me closer into a hug.  
"That was before I fell in love," He admitted. "I don't know if I can do this, Vexen. I don't know if I can stand up and watch these people die in my name."  
I steeled myself for the ugly truth.  
"You haven't got a choice."  
Marluxia buried his face in the crook of my neck, and I found that familiar patch of fur behind his ears with my fingers, which didn't seem to go unappreciated.  
"I know."  
"Think about it," I said after a moment, "If this wasn't the right thing to do, then you wouldn't have a thousand or more Marked rooting for your cause, would you?"  
"I suppose not," Marluxia reluctantly agreed, gazing distantly out among the crowds.  
"You have to see this through," I finished. "Isn't this your dream? Come on, you can do this. _We_ can do this."  
"Together?"  
I drew him in for a kiss.  
"Together."

* * *

With the sun rising, so too woke the human world against which we were making a stand.  
Several things happened and all of them at once. People on their way to work stopped dead in their tracks. Pedestrians froze with fear like deer in headlights. Policemen dispatched aimed their guns in our faces and never fired.  
Marluxia untangled his limbs from mine and slowly stood. He was shaking. I kept my hand in his, some small reminder as I hung shyly behind him that I was still there when he needed me.  
"Friends," He said, and his deep voice carried effortlessly over the silence. "Welcome to the revolution."  
A cheer rose above the Unwanted, above the towering intercity skyscrapers, above the crowds to join our dreams. Slowly, surely, the cheer became a chant. The chant became a song. And somewhere, amongst it all, I could hear the cheerful tinkle of the old guitar.  
More faceless men with guns were sent out - but they couldn't shoot, not in broad daylight. The streets began to fill as more Unwanted than we'd ever anticipated arrived from all over the country. They were risking their lives but the plan was working - a few normal people were tentatively stepping in at the fringes of the square, talking to some of the Marked. It was surreal. Here were businessmen in smart suits with briefcases full of important paperwork, sitting down with rugged vampires and gargoyles, staring in awe at the sight of nearly two thousand, now, so-called monsters sitting calmly in the centre of London city.  
Marluxia, once fragile and haunted, seemed to grow stronger every second.  
"It's working," He said once, the fire in his eyes alight and burning strong. "This is it. This is the truth. This is _history_."  
And he held me tight and kissed me with a passion that twelve hours ago I thought was all but gone.

* * *

At midday, I stumbled across a reporter.  
"- National state of emergency has been declared until their purpose has been established-"  
"Excuse me?"  
I don't know why I approached the woman and tapped her shoulder. I must have looked like hell. She span round, shocked, but visibly relaxed when she saw that I was safely human.  
"Yes?"  
I gestured to the camera, which had turned away, training on some of the Unwanted amusing themselves in the square.  
"May I...?"  
The woman smiled sweetly and waved the cameraman away, then turned fully to me.  
"What happened to you? Do you know what's going on?"  
I cleared my throat and couldn't think of anything eloquent to say. Marluxia would know.  
"I have a friend who can explain everything to you," I said eventually, turning to try to pick Marluxia out from the crowd.  
"You look awful," She said thoughtfully.  
"Thanks," I snapped, spotting Marluxia and ushering him over.  
"Aren't you scared?"  
"Why would I be scared?" I asked. "They're not here to hurt anybody. They're not murderers."  
She looked me like I was mad, and shrank away when Marluxia approached.  
"She's a reporter," I said, gesturing to the woman. "She has a camera."  
Marluxia twigged from my bad explanation and duly stepped forwards, holding out his hand.  
"I am Marluxia."  
She looked at the pointed, canine ears, the eyes like slits, the claws sharpened for murder, and the crescent moon tattooed onto his cheek. I could see that she didn't want to look deeper.  
"I believe in the freedom of the Unwanted," Marluxia continued. "We are not monsters. We are not murders. We are normal people just like you and we deserve more than a life on the run, salvaging food from bins and sleeping on the streets, not knowing if we'll ever again wake up."  
The woman hesitated, then reluctantly took his hand. He smiled at her.  
"I used to be human," He said, a comment so offhand he could have simply been mentioning the weather.  
Most people, I realised, never knew where exactly the Unwanted originated. People who changed just went "missing", succumbed to some unspecified "disease", or were involved in a "fatal car crash". And the Organisation? Nobody even suspected.  
"Oh." The reporter said.  
"I was sixteen when I changed," Marluxia continued. "The night of my prom. I stepped outside for a breath of fresh air and next thing I knew, I had this-" He gestured to his Mark - "And nothing more than the clothes on my back. I never saw my friends or family again."  
The reporter looked at him with an expression I couldn't quite place. Then she glanced momentarily away, and spoke.  
"And these?" She asked, gesticulating to the others. "The same?"  
Marluxia nodded.  
"Most of them."  
Despite herself, it looked like the woman was curious to know more.  
"So... why are you here?"  
"People need to know the truth," Marluxia said simple. "The Marked are no better or worse than ordinary humans. We deserve more to be hunted. If a human developed cancer, would you hesitate to treat them? And yet anyone afflicted with this mutation-" He waved at the Unwanted, "Is cast away from society, driven to believe that they are worse less than nothing."  
"But-" The reporter began, and wisely chose better.  
"The camera," Marluxia continued. "Where are you airing?"  
"Nation-wide," The reporter replied for a lack of a more defensive response. "Even in some parts of America."  
"I need to speak," Marluxia said. "We all do."  
The cameraman, who'd been idly tinkering with his equipment, trained his lens on us. I instinctively shied away, but Marluxia paused only briefly then turned and yelled to his followers.  
"We are not monsters!"  
_"We are not monsters!"_  
"We are not murderers!"  
_"We are not murderers!"_  
"We are the Unwanted! Hear us out!"  
_"Hear us out!"_  
Even the most heartless of human, I thought as I joined in with the cries, would feel the raw emotion buzzing in the air. They'd be forced to see the truth, just like I have been so any months ago. And this, I realised, was what it would take to topple the Organisation.  
Marluxia's face was split open into a grin so wide he looked as though he could probably eat somebody whole.  
"This," He said triumphantly, "Is where I was born to be."  
I laughed at him, puffing steam in the cold New Year air.  
"I wasn't. But I'm glad I came."

* * *

By now there was a steady stream of Unwanted arriving, more by the hour. They walked in full view of the human world, stood tall and proud. Many were shot down at the fringes of the protest where nobody was looking. Marluxia honoured every one before smaller groups took them out to the sea.  
"Eight hundred and forty one," He told me quietly as he flicked back and forth to pay his last respects. "They will not be forgotten."

* * *

As evening drew in, Marluxia called everyone to settle, back up on the plinth. I stayed with Xigbar and Demyx, down in the square with all the others. I'd had a look around and counted at least a dozen humans among or number; more had joined during the day but now with the air rapidly cooling, they'd returned home to unsuspecting families and warm beds. And above us all, Marluxia stood.  
"Thank you," He began. "All of you who have honoured my call."  
A few cheers rippled the crowd but Marluxia raised his hand for silence.  
"All of you are heroes."  
The night was still, and every word carried across the city.  
"I don't know what will happen now," Marluxia admitted. "Some will seek to shoot us down. Many of you will have heard of the Organisation. They will want us all dead. I cannot promise any of you that you will survive this revolution. But-"  
Silence. I had never known so many people to be so absolutely, utterly silent.  
"We will not hide in the shadows any longer!"  
The silence became breathless in its anticipation.  
"We have nothing left to lose! And if this is what it takes to free the Marked, _we will stand_!"  
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Larxene and her doting little'uns scramble to their feet. More followed her example until we were all up, cheering.  
"Are we not the Unwanted?" Marluxia screamed over the noise. "What right does the Organisation have to want us _dead_?"  
What right indeed, I thought to myself as gargoyles lines the square to keep watch and the rest of us settled down in a heap for the night. It wasn't exactly comfortable, but nearly two months of sleeping in the rough had taught me that things could be a lot, lot worse. Tomorrow Larxene and I would have to shop again; but for now we'd get all the sleep we could under hastily erected groundsheet-tents. Marluxia picked his way through the sleeping bodies and sank down beside me.  
"Hey."  
"Hello."  
He yawned rather ungracefully and flopped into my lap.  
"I'm so tired."  
He looked it, too - bags had settled under his eyes, his skin a little greyer than usual. But his lips were no longer set into a displeased, weary growl, and he seemed lighter, somehow.  
"But look what you did."  
Marluxia magnanimously shook his head.  
"I'm no leader," He said. "I'm just a catalyst. This determination has been in our hearts ever since the Unwanted phenomenon first began. They just needed me to ignite the fuel."  
Before I could reply, he'd quickly kissed me goodnight, and pressed a little closer to my body, falling asleep almost instantly. I wasn't surprised.

* * *

Morning arrived and with it, something of a surprise. Quite a big surprise indeed. Marluxia shook me awake at dawn; he looked like he'd been up for some time already.  
"We have visitors," He said.  
My mind immediately sprang to the Organisation and my eyes flew wide, darting around the area in search of any threats.  
"Visitors?"  
"From the mainland," Marluxia said, calming me with a warm, gentle hand. "I hope that somebody can speak French, because I haven't a clue."  
"French?"  
"Nearly a thousand of them. They hijacked a ferry last night and just arrived in Dover a few hours ago. Their leader used to be a naval officer, a man named Luxord. That's all I've managed to work out so far."  
"How did they know?" I asked as I stumbled to my feet, jerking others around me awake. Marluxia shrugged.  
"We must have caused quite a stir. Where's Lexaeus? He's educated enough to know French."  
I looked around for the giant of a man, and couldn't pick him out.  
"He's probably having a smoke somewhere."  
"Send out a word," Marluxia decided as he kicked Xigbar awake. "The French are on the move from the coast. Damn it, where are we going to put them?"  
He looked around - by now the square was full to bursting, the surrounding streets blocked by the Marked. We'd long since lost count of the numbers.  
"I'm sure we'll find space," He eventually shrugged. "If the worst comes to the worst, we could post them off to congregate in Paris."  
The day wore on and more challenges presented themselves; the French had brought weapons and convincing them to disarm through a language barrier was an interesting one. Few of the Marked were well-educated, many of them having turned in their early teenage years, so Lexaeus and a few select others were left to translate. I didn't stray far from the central square. I felt trapped, too caught up in the wave of the protest, too lacking in the control that my entire life had once been set up to allude to. I didn't have the confidence or charisma to feel right as one of the "leaders", not like Marluxia. To put it simply: I was scared.  
I didn't see much of Marluxia; he was too busy welcoming new arrivals and sorting groups. It was a hefty task, even with a large group of vaguely more clued-up Marked helping him out. Larxene was collecting more children, and they were making kites out of bin bags and bits of string. I suspected that she really just liked the devoted attention that they gave her. Demyx was singing, Xigbar charged with helping out in first aid. I felt sort of useless.  
So I found myself wandering aimlessly around the camps of Unwanted, picking out bits of other people's conversations as I roamed. I could distinctly hear the dialects change as I moved through the crowds. People recognised me, pointed me out, nodded respectfully in my direction.  
"You're Vexen, aren't you? Marluxia's partner?"  
"Y-yeah."  
"Wow. That must be pretty awesome."  
"I... I guess so."  
"I'm surprised you're still human. Hasn't the Organisation got to you yet?"  
I barked out a laugh.  
"They've been trying."  
"How'd you get that scar on your face? Looks like claws."  
I subconsciously lifted my fingers to my face. The wound had long since healed over, leaving three neat, white lines running in line to my jaw.  
"It's a long story."  
I moved on.

* * *

By now, wherever we turned there were guns. Police officers were reinforced with army men, tall and stoic as they hid behind their weapons. They were ordered not to shoot; not in the blinding sight of day, not when nobody could deny that the Unwanted were doing nothing wrong.  
"They're waiting," Marluxia told me a way away from the square, as medical supplies filtered through the masses, "For us to take a wrong step. A single attack- _bang_." He slapped his palm. "We'll all be dead."  
I shivered, glancing around at the strangers that Marluxia had so seemingly effortlessly summoned. We were dancing on hot wires, and inside me coursed simple fear that one of us would fall - and bring the whole world down with us.  
There were still groups of madness - groups hiding out for a violent revolution, gangs with stashes of guns, knives and grenades waiting for the call. Marluxia crushed them; as his hundreds turned to _thousands_, more seemed willing to convert to his way of thinking. Weapons were tossed into the Thames in an open gesture of peace; so were some of the worst extremists. Marluxia had no time for advocates of violence. In fact - at the moment, he hardly had time for anything. It was his nature to be adamant that everything was his responsibility; administration of medicines, now in short supply, dividing the Unwanted into manageable clusters, welcoming new arrivals. There were more people than I'd ever been anticipating; thousands of them had poured into the city centre. It wasn't just Marked, either. There were pockets of humans amongst the crowds - sympathisers, traitors to the Organisation on the run from certain death, family members found my their converted kin. Every single one had, like me, a story to tell, and every one had that same spark in their eyes that burned in all of us.

Midday came and Marluxia drew the line.  
Through the narrow passageways the bodies created he weaved, back to the Fourth Plinth where he took my hand-  
"I need you."  
- and climbed easily up to address his Marked. They seemed to sense a climax in his presence; slowly the square collected in silence, waiting for his word. And when he spoke, it ricochetted in the air like a gun.  
"The time has come," He called, hand tight around mine. "For the Marked to wear their symbols with pride!"  
I saw a considerable count of people subconsciously raise their fingers to their cheeks and suddenly, still human, I felt bare.  
"To stand tall as free people and citizens of this society!"  
The Unwanted rose. The gunmen at their post cocked their rifles. Somewhere near and far, helicopters surveyed the crowds, cameras no doubt rolling for the world. I watched one fly as low as it dared and could almost see the features on its crew's faces.  
"To _prove_," Marluxia yelled, his body quivering with raw emotion, "That _we are not monsters_!"  
They knew the rest.  
"We are not murderers!"  
"We're the Unwanted, _hear us out_!"  
And the crowd parted before us: sliding through was a sleek white angel flanked by bodyguards armed to the teeth.

The Organisation was here.


	15. Requiem

The angel approached us casually, safeguarded by his lackeys - as though we would dare to injure a citizen, although I suspected he was hardly just that - until I could see the whites of his eyes. He was tall and slim, stark white hair completely contrasting his black tailored suit. Turquoise eyes, white and turquoise wings. Every detail of his body and clothing was impeccable. This was a man who was powerful and knew it.  
Ten metres from us, he stopped and smiled.  
"Marluxia," He said casually.  
I glanced at my lover; his stance was defensive, his teeth bared into a growl.  
"Riku."  
The angel's smile widened a fraction.  
"I see you remember me," He stated pleasantly, looking over Marluxia's rugged appearance. "Even in your... sorry state."  
"Enough with the formalities," Marluxia snarled. "I know why you're here."  
Instantly, Riku's face was a blank slate. In the silence, I heard one of his bodyguards draw a sleek silver pistol and hand it to his master. Riku studied it for a moment, before throwing back the safety latch and firing it into the crowd. There were so many people that he couldn't miss. There were screams at the epicentre of the bullet, and a small group sank to the aid of the wounded.  
"He's dead..."  
Marluxia took a step forwards, fists clenched so tight his knuckles looked as though they'd split.  
"What do you think you're doing?"  
This time, Riku took aim before he fired, eyes easily catching the next innocent victim he plucked out of the crowd. Blood flowered and the Marked girl fell.  
"They're monsters. They don't deserve to live." He said. His tone chilled me to the bone. It was like he somehow actually believed that these people were less than the scum on his shoes. Not, given his appearance, that there probably was any. He reloaded the gun and took aim again. People scattered and his sights trained them.  
"Kill me," He flatly commanded Marluxia. "Unless you want to see more of your devoted followers _die_."  
Marluxia let out a howl, but did not move. Another Marked, a vampire, crumpled to the ground. His hood happened to fall from his face and we all saw his stark white skin crumple under the dying sun.  
"No!"  
Without meaning to, I grabbed Marluxia's wrist. I tried to form a sentence, some sort of encouragement or advice - but my mouth was frozen. He glared for a moment, then ripped himself way, turning back to the angel.  
"Leave them alone!" He yelled. "They've done nothing wrong!"  
"Like _anybody_ would believe that," Riku said nonchalantly. The pistol cracked again and I felt the wind as the bullet flew past me. Too late, I twisted to see Larxene drop to her knees, cradling one of her beautiful children in her arms, already crimson with blood. And... its lifeless body was smiling. At her.  
I felt tears press at my eyes and stumbled back a little, desperately grabbing for Marluxia's arms, anything to support myself. No. This wasn't how it was supposed to end. You didn't kill an eight-year-old. You didn't kill an eight-year-old even if it _was_ a gargoyle, and you didn't laugh at the way that it smiled at the woman who had tried to save him.  
"Kill him," I found myself whispering as Larxene screamed, laying the body aside and throwing herself to her feet.  
"_Kill him_!"  
Marluxia was frozen.  
"What are you waiting for?" Larxene screeched. "Are you going to let him murder more innocent people?"  
"No," He said, so quietly that I could barely hear him. Another bullet buried itself into a throat, instantly killing. There were screams, and silence. "No," Marluxia said again, hand falling to mine only to brush me away. "I'm not a murderer."  
This time, Riku outright laughed.  
"Hah! That's _rich_!"  
Marluxia grit his teeth and said nothing. Riku grinned momentarily, stepping forwards.  
"You haven't told them, have you?" He said, gesturing to us. "About what _really_ happened the night you became this monster."  
"I-!" Marluxia began, and dropped his gaze. "It wasn't my _fault_."  
"Oh? Like it wasn't your _claws_ that ripped her chest apart?"  
"Sh-shut up!"  
I had never heard such stricken desperation in Marluxia's voice, not since the first night when I'd cocked my rifle to his head like I could ever shoot.  
"Because you _killed_ her, didn't you?" Riku pursued relentlessly. "Tell them the truth! Tell them how you tore apart our best friend without a shred of mercy!"  
"No," Marluxia hissed, stumbling backwards. Riku fired again. "_No._ That wasn't me."  
"It was!" Riku exclaimed, something of his icy exterior slipping away. "It was, Marluxia. I saw everything. I saw her try to comfort you, and you _killed_ her."  
"Don't you think I could bring her back if I _could_?" Marluxia howled, his entire body shaking with anger - or pain. "Don't you think that if I could change one _damned_ thing on this world, I've bring Naminé back? Have you never considered that maybe I don't _want_ to be a _monster_?"  
Riku seemed to consider this confession and consider it a lie. He clipped another magazine into the gun, fired again. And again.  
"I know better than to trust the word of a _werewolf_, Marluxia!"  
And again.  
"Kill him!" Larxene cried, scrabbling against Lexaeus, the only thing holding her fury back. "He's a _murderer_! He deserves to die!"  
And _again_.  
"_No_," Marluxia hissed. "Nobody deserves to die."  
Someone burst from the crowd and Riku's bodyguard effortlessly took her out with a spray of bullets. As though he'd been hit himself, Marluxia howled again until his throat gave out.  
"Stop!"  
"I don't think so," Riku said. "Not until I've purged your _filth_ from this world."  
"No," Marluxia hissed, shaking his head in disbelief. "You _wouldn't_."  
"It's quite convenient, actually, that you've collected all the monsters in one place. Perhaps now I can finally avenge Naminé's death."  
"This isn't vengeance," Marluxia exclaimed, somehow finding his muscles enough to gesture wildly to the fatalities. "She'd never want this!"  
"Who are _you_ to decide?"  
Bang. Another fighter dead.  
"_Kill him_!"  
Marluxia seemed torn between letting his violent instincts take over and destroy the angel's body and watching his followers fall. I was glad, deep inside my vindictive mind, that I was not in his position. I'd crumple beneath the pressure - but it didn't seem as though Marluxia was faring too well, either.  
"It's corrupted you,"  
"I'm not the one with the Mark of the Unwanted."  
Somewhere, some part of me that I didn't know existed stepped out of its corner and took control of my legs. And, apparently, my mouth. I hadn't even got a clue what I was saying. But I knew what I needed to.  
"See here," I began, stepping in front of Marluxia to his - and my - surprise. "You have no right to kill these people! They've-" I paused, remembering Riku's accusations. Had Marluxia really killed the girl Naminé? Somehow, I had no doubts that he'd never do such a thing... not now. "Whatever's happened in their past," I corrected myself, "Doesn't mean they deserve to die just because of who they are."  
Riku stared at me with his pistol.  
"And who do you think you are?"  
"I'm Vexen," I stated lamely. "Dr Vexen Carlisle."  
"No doubt," Riku scorned, "Marluxia's convinced you with his silver tongue to take his side."  
I reached back to grip Marluxia's hand with sweating palms. Whatever happened now, I couldn't lose faith in him. Not this far in the game.  
Although... the game, I suspected, was over now.  
"I made my own choices."  
"Oh?"  
"You can't kill me," I stated, hoping to sound threatening. "I'm human."  
"No," Riku agreed thoughtfully, "But I do happen to have an estimated five thousand Marked at my disposal instead."  
I found myself faltering.  
"You can't."  
"I take it you've never witnessed a loved one's death at the hands of such a monster as these."  
I couldn't argue that, but...  
"No, but there are a lot of people here who have witnessed a loved one's death at the hands of such a monster as _you_."  
This seemed to throw Riku off, I noted triumphantly. Somehow I found the courage to storm up to him and angrily prod him in the chest.  
"That's right," I said, amazed that I could look a man with a very smooth gun straight in the eye. "You're the one who's sick and twisted. You and your-" I gestured to the men behind him, searching for the right word- "your cohorts."  
Riku searched my eyes.  
"Courage doesn't come naturally to you, does it, Dr Carlisle?"  
"Well, it doesn't look like justice doesn't come naturally to you, either," I snapped back. "Or fair play. You think that you can win some kind of personal battle with your boys and your toys?"  
I couldn't hold out much longer. I didn't have a tongue as fast as my sister Larxene - but, as I glanced a familiar stature in the distance and approaching - fast enough.  
"Let me give you some advice," Riku said to me, glancing momentarily at where my eyes had been but seeing nothing, "Dr Carlisle. Don't get yourself caught up in affairs you know nothing about."  
An irrational grin crawled onto my face.  
"Too late."  
"You do realise," Riku continued when my comeback wasn't snarkier, collecting another gun - one whose shape I dimly recognised - from a bodyguard, "That I have the power to turn you into one of these helpless, unprotected freaks."  
"You wouldn't," I insisted, hoping like hell that I was right. "How many cameras must be trained on us by now? You can bluff your way out of killing a Marked but your Organisation can't cover the intentional conversion of a human."  
"Maybe, then," Riku said, quick mind easily opting for other options every time I reasoned my way out of an unpleasant death, "You can be accidentally be caught in the crossfire. There are too many monsters here for a pathetic human such as yourself to be noticed amongst the bodies once we've disposed of them all."  
Marluxia had come up behind me, and carefully pulled me away.  
"He has no quarrel with you, Riku," He said, glaring meaningfully at me as his hand slipped from my shoulder to my fingers, "Leave him alone."  
"Naminé had no 'quarrel' with you, either," Riku shot back. It was a low blow, but it was a direct hit.  
"I told you, that wasn't my fault!" Marluxia yelled. "Don't you _dare_ try to insinuate-"  
He was interrupted.  
"Vexen! Marluxia! Get down!"  
Something happened and I was hitting the concrete, hard, Marluxia over me, and there was the explosion of a gun and I raised my head just in time to see Riku topple forwards and fall, a seeping circular wound neat in his back between the first preened feathers of his wings. I searched for the perpetrator.  
"Zexion."  
"And," The diminutive angel said calmly, slotting his gun neatly away as Riku's bodyguards stared in shock, "Between you and me, I've been wanting to do that for a long time."  
He stalked over to the dead body and found quickly cooling hands, locking them into a pair of cuffs.  
"Riku Seraphim," He stated conversationally at the corpse, "You are under arrest for criminal activity in the name of justice, disregard for international law, corruption of the public and above all, genocide. If you have any words to defend yourself, speak now or forever hold your silence. Nothing? Good." He gestured to the bodyguards. "Take him away. You'll find a police vehicle waiting. Although the death penalty has not been legalised in this country for centuries, I think it would be a little unjust to give him a _life_ sentence, wouldn't you?"  
He laughed at their bemused expressions and made a beeline for Lexaeus.  
"Zexion."  
"Hello, there."  
I turned away at their embrace to offer them a little privacy, busying myself with crawling to my feet and helping Marluxia up as well. Noise was beginning to build amongst the bemused crowd again, but Marluxia shushed them as Zexion stepped away from his own lover and pulled out an important looking document.  
"Riku was merely desperate for a shred of the power you took from him. I have your conclusion," He said to Marluxia. "If you would...?"  
Marluxia uncertainly took the paper, and in his claws it didn't look as though it were the most important thing in the history of the Unwanted. He quickly scanned through it, and the only emotion I could pull from his face was disbelief.  
"You mean...?"  
"The Organisation wasn't terribly pleased. But the Governments have heard the truth and made their decision."  
Marluxia nodded, and the two of them - plus me, dragged behind - made their way up to the Plinth. There, Marluxia coughed and held up his hand for silence.  
It had never been so still.  
"By order of the International Union, including the parliament of the United Kingdom, the congress of the United States of America and Canada, and the presidency of The Franco-Spanish Republic," He read, "Following the Trafalgar Square protest, London, and the consequent Central Park protest, New York, the Tokyo Bay protest, Tokyo and the Hillbrow Tower protest, Johannesburg, this emergency statement and decree is to be enforced in the entirety of the International Union from this moment forth."  
To put it into the most overused cliché in literature, the air was so thick with tension you could cut it with a knife. Or _words_.  
"Those recognised to be the Unwanted, the Marked, _Désemparés_, or the _Umeacha_, including but not limited to the species werewolves, gargoyles and vampires, are to be _protected by law from murder or abortion except in self defence or medical emergency, and if accused to be subject to fair trial in the courts of justice pertaining to the human laws in the state in which the suggested crime has been committed_."  
"So you mean," I whispered, "You're free?"  
Marluxia flashed me a smile, and turned to his crowd.  
"Friends," He said. "Today, the course of history has been changed forever! Today, we may walk the streets of our homes with _pride_! Today we may speak the truth with no fear for our lives! Today we have set in motion the wheels that will _change_ the _world_!"  
The sun was sleeping by the time the cheers had died down. Marluxia stayed waiting on the plinth. He was right - this was the first step, but the battle was far from over. There was still more left to fight for. So he waited, until the Marked sensed his desire to communicate and settled once more. He sat down, legs hanging down on the edge of the historic stone.  
"There is much left to do," He stated truthfully. "There are still humans who do not wish to see the truth. Humans with bloodlust, humans with revenge on their lips. The deaths are not over and they will not cease for a long time. We may always carry a stigma, ten, twenty, thirty generations down the line. But we can change things. _This_ proves that things can be changed. We are not helpless, or confined to a life of pain and loss. It is our duty to fight for equal rights for all sentient species on this planet, not just humans. But it works both ways, too."  
He scanned the crowd for a moment like he was explicitly waiting for me to try to work out what he meant.  
"It is time for us to learn to live in the human world. Now that we cannot be killed - we can no longer kill. When we can buy, we can no longer steal. You can choose to be a worthless criminal if you so desire, but don't come running to any other Marked seeking refuge. If we want rights, we have also to accept responsibility. Do I make myself clear?"  
He sighed to himself as the crowd erupted into an impressively mixed response.  
"This is going to take some work."  
I drew myself up to sit beside him.  
"You can do it."  
He chuckled a little, leaning against me - and deciding to straddle my hips when that didn't seem intimate enough. I wanted to inform him that, actually, several thousand people could see us from here - but somehow with his lips on mine, I couldn't find the words.  
"You keep saying that," He whispered. "It's not me. It's _us_."  
"So magnanimous," I scoffed. "Aren't you the tiniest bit proud of yourself?"  
Marluxia turned to momentarily glance at his followers.  
"More," He decided, "Than I could ever express."  
That, I had to admit to myself, sounded more like Marluxia to me, the Marluxia with a quirky tail and a crooked smile. And a devilishly handsome face.  
Studying him and seeing the crescent tattoo on his cheek, I couldn't help but wonder what he'd looked like before the Mark and the scars. Marluxia with circular pupils, no furry ears and not even a tail was a strange thought indeed; I decided that I preferred him with skin slightly rough to the touch from years of abuse and that sensitive patch of fur just behind his ears. But...  
"So," I said, trying to sound conversational and failing. "You knew Riku."  
Marluxia seemed to collapse into me at the mere mention of the man's name. For several minutes, he didn't reply. And then-  
"For a long time we were inseparable."  
"And the girl Naminé?"  
This time the pause was longer, terser.  
"I loved her. More than anything."  
I swallowed thickly, my hands finding that patch to stroke. It seemed to provide some comfort for Marluxia, his arms tight around my waist and nose pressed close to my neck.  
"What happened?"  
"You know," Marluxia said quietly, "When werewolves first change each full moon, for a few minutes they are acutely aware of their surroundings but have no control over their actions?"  
I nodded - Demyx had told me about it the night that Marluxia had tried to kill me. And what he was going to say next was all too painfully predictable.  
"Naminé... She must have wondered where I was, because she came out to check that I was okay. But it was too late. By the time I realised what was going on-" Suddenly claws clenched tight into my shirt, scraping at my back and forcing a sharp intake of air into my lungs. "- It was too late. I couldn't stop myself. I saw everything. I ripped her to pieces until they'd barely be able to identify her body. You couldn't possibly hope to meet a more wonderful, intelligent, beautiful, kind hearted... and I killed her."  
I felt moisture seep into my shirt. Marluxia was crying.  
"It wasn't your fault," I whispered, pulling his heavy body close to mine. "You couldn't have-"  
"I _know_," Marluxia interrupted. "I've had nine years to spend every night dreaming of her screaming face, don't you think I _know_? If the Organisation had tried to help cure the human race from this... this affliction, and not just brutally kill more innocent people, then maybe Naminé would still be alive today."  
"This is more than just freeing the Marked, isn't it." I intoned dully. Marluxia nodded.  
"A lot more."  
How long did we stay up on the Plinth? Until the sun peeped above the skyscrapers and Larxene crawled up with her clutch of children - seven, now, all looking as tired and haunted as I felt - to plonk herself beside us.  
"Hello, boys."  
Marluxia barely acknowledged her, even when a werewolf crawled in between us and began to make himself a nest from our limbs.  
"So. We did it, huh?"  
"Right now I don't feel as victorious as I should," Marluxia intoned dully. "This isn't the end. There's so much more to do. Too much. I just want to sleep."  
I sighed, trying to shoo the invading werewolf away so Marluxia could rest, but he wouldn't let me.  
"'S name's Sora," Larxene helpfully informed me. "The way you bribe him is to offer him food." And she pulled a packet of crisps from her pocket, dangling it in front of the little boy's face. Eventually he decided that food trumphed bed, and crawled out to eat. "He can't really talk," Larxene added as he polished every last scrap off. "He's been Marked for two years, about, but he's not even sure how old he is."  
Her random useless information was as good a distraction as any for me, so I listened to every word until Marluxia pertinently pulled me away for a kiss. He only managed a few seconds before he pulled back to yawn and promptly fell asleep. For somebody who'd slept sparsely for the past two months, he looked like he was going to be out of it for quite some time.  
Larxene giggled, her boys and girls in her arms as they, too, began to curl up for sleep after a restless night.  
"Bet you never expected to be leading these guys out in a revolution, huh, brother?"  
I glanced up. Larxene never called me brother. Never, ever. She barely even recognised me as a blood relation unless forced to. Hearing her state it so bluntly - and _fondly_ - was a little odd. More than. Disconcerting hardly covered it.  
"Yeah," I agreed lamely. "Strange, isn't it? Sister."  
"Hah," Larxene laughed. "That sounds so weird coming from you."  
"I could say the same as you calling me brother," I intoned dully.  
"Aren't you glad that I brought Marluxia home that night?"  
I opened my mouth to bark some snappy retort - but then a thought occurred to me.  
"Why _did_ you bring him home?"  
Larxene shrugged, gazing up at the first tendrils of the sun creeping over the horizon.  
"I dunno. I guess maybe I just knew he'd be special."  
"Special," I echoed thoughtfully, looking down at Marluxia's sleeping form. Right now, what I really wanted was to go home. Mentally, I made a list of things I was going to do: make a warm cup of coffee - decaffeinated - run a bath and slide in with Marluxia up to my nose until my whole body pruned and I'd scraped two months of god-forsaken grease out of my hair, change into a pair of clean and ironed pyjamas warmed on the radiator, have a shave, and then crawl into bed and sleep for a week.  
But that was a world away now. I wasn't even sure I'd ever be able to go back to my own house - not after everything that had happened. The Marked needed Marluxia and Marluxia needed me. And strangely, I didn't really care.  
Except the shave. We'd had a razor but at some point it had got lost, and I really needed to shave. So did Marluxia. No matter who was bearing it, pink stubble was just... odd.  
"You alright?"  
Larxene snapped me from my thoughts, which was probably just as well.  
"Yeah. Tired."  
"Worth it?"  
I looked out at the camps of Marked, and down at Marluxia snoring peacefully, propped up against my chest. Marluxia.  
_Marluxia_.  
"Infinitely."

* * *

The months have passed in a blur. After that first victory, everything tumbled down like dominoes, step by step by ricocheting step. An emergency sector of the Government was set up; Marluxia made contact with ambassadors in nearly a dozen foreign countries. We filled an old warehouse with metal bunk beds for the sick and wounded, enlisted professional help for the deepest injuries. Larxene tidied up her children and now she's never seen without at least a couple of them clinging to her arms. She adores the attention.  
In the London apartment Zexion and Lexaeus briefly inhabited, I finally got to wash myself clean. The six-plus-children of us moved in- it's cramped, and full of the Marked's comings and goings, but that's the way life is now. There's barely a free moment but it's twenty times more satisfying than any office job working for a merciless boss. There've been glitches, and quite a lot of them - opposition and idiocy on both sides - but Marluxia's charismatic personality is, by and large, pulling us through. It's insane, I've found myself thinking on more than a few occasions. The general public's still wary, but who knew that all it would take was a couple of correctly informed documentaries to set things back on the right path? Xigbar's put his technical expertise to use - we're slowly but surely listing an online database of the Marked. It's both the best and worst thing to see ordinary people come to collect their long lost friends and family, once presumed dead, and take them home at last. A widow reunited with her husband, now a rugged gargoyle. A single father who lost his son in a car crash gets more than he bargained for when he comes to collect his child. Sora's four years old and his birthday's in September; who knew that Larxene would ever lower herself to wear a ring on her next-to-last finger?

It's four years later that I find myself back in Trafalgar Square, staring up at the four lions smoothed with age, the remains of Nelson's column and the proof that things really are changing.  
"It's strange, isn't it?" Marluxia, next to me, says. "The Government's still dithering about allowing the Marked into hospitals, but they've still got the time and money to spend thousands of pounds on a statue."  
Nobody calls them the Unwanted any more. It took eighteen months for the first company to employ the werewolves' superior strength for manual labour - now there are a whole collection of businesses who've found uses for the Marked's unique talents. Marluxia thanked them all personally.  
"It's not just a statue," I argue. "It's a memorial."  
Marluxia's shoulders sag a little the way they always do when anybody brings up the fatalities his campaign saw though.  
"Nine hundred and forty six. I know," He whispers.  
They collected names, a painstaking task never fully completed. _Countless others_, the plaque reads beneath the string of deceased. _Who have laid down their lives for the truth._  
The Organisation is gone now. Word spreads like the wind when there's no wall to block it out - and now all the governments around the world are seeking to repeal their barbaric laws. But, I suppose, it's this one that's been forced to move first.  
Marluxia wanted the four figures on the statue to be anonymous but he was outvoted by the team of artists commissioned to design it. So it's quite obviously Marluxia standing tall and proud, eight feet high and scanning the horizon, as the scaffolding is folded away. There's Demyx, too, strumming on his trusty guitar. Xigbar's leaning over his shoulder and laughing. On the last corner, long and slim legs hanging over the edge of the old base, there is a human.  
I saw the original plan with my body flanking Marluxia.  
"No," I said. "I was barely even involved. I don't want to take credit for just happening to be Marluxia's partner."  
The updated development makes me smile. Shoulder length hair slicked back, a petite figure and a toothy smile is a hundred times more fitting than one of my no doubt saturnine expressions. And of course Larxene would never be complete without a few of her children, tossed in reckless abandon over her body or curled up around her arms.  
"I like it."  
Marluxia chuckles and leads me away.


End file.
